Life Under U.K. Sanctions: Chauffeurs, Chefs and $1 Million Allowances
Despite tough talk, Britain’s new sanctions program against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proved shaky. Some oligarchs have received generous exemptions. Officials have at times overreached.
The British government has allow
ed Russian oligarchs to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on perks like private chefs, chauffeurs and housekeepers, despite ostensibly having their bank accounts frozen, documents show.
The exemptions, known as licenses, are an example of how the United Kingdom’s new financial sanctions system, put together after Brexit, has proved shaky. In some cases, oligarchs were allowed more than $1 million a year in living expenses. In others, officials had to abandon criminal investigations and remove sanctions after legal battles.
“We will keep increasing the pressure on Putin and cut off funding for the Russian war machine,” the British foreign secretary said last spring as she announced Russian sanctions in the first weeks of the war in Ukraine.
In the months that followed, Britain was quietly more welcoming. It granted the Russian banking tycoon Mikhail Fridman a license to pay for 19 members of staff, including drivers, private chefs, housekeepers and handymen, during the first year of the war, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and people directly familiar with the licenses. The payment came to 300,000 pounds (almost $400,000) over about ten months. Mr. Fridman also received a roughly £7,000 monthly allowance to cover his family’s basic needs.
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Athlone House in London, owned by Mr. Fridman, last year.Credit...Leon Neal/Getty Images
Officials permitted his former business partner, Petr Aven, a monthly allowance of £60,000. The majority went to a security company owned by Mr. Aven’s financial manager, who has been under investigation for potentially helping Mr. Aven evade sanctions, court records show. It is unclear what checks the government carried out before approving the transactions.
Mr. Fridman and Mr. Aven are described by the British government as “pro-Kremlin oligarchs” who are closely associated with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, an allegation they both deny and are challenging in court. “We are politically neutral businessmen. That is all,” said Mr. Aven, reached by phone in the Hamptons.
The former business partners are among several Russians who have had sanctions imposed in public since the war, only to see those restrictions eased in secret. The British Treasury granted at least 82 licenses last year and many more applications are pending, according to official figures seen by The New York Times.
Law enforcement agents, who deal with potential criminal breaches of the financial blacklist, have at times been frustrated with those decisions and by a licensing system that they see as undermining the sanctions. Treasury officials allowed Mr. Aven, for example, to spend more than £1 million while technically cut off from the British economy. At the same time, law enforcement officers investigated him for possible sanctions evasion and raided his countryside mansion last year.
Some of the people who described details about the licenses did so on condition of anonymity because the matters are confidential. A spokesman for the U.K. Treasury declined to comment on specific cases but said licenses were granted to allow payments for “basic needs” and are “strictly monitored.” A National Crime Agency spokesman said it would not be appropriate to comment because it is investigating Mr. Aven and Mr. Fridman.
UPDATE Wednesday, August 23, 2023
--- SUSPICIOUSLY INSANE, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKY REPEATS MEETING WITH SERBIAN CHETNIK ALEKSANDAR VUĆIĆ WHICH THE TWO REHEARSED ALONGSIDE WITH RUSSIANS WAY PRIOR TO WAR ON AT LEAST THREE OCCASIONS https://ausertimes.blogspot.com/2023/08/suspiciously-insane-ukrainian-president.html
--- @NATO and EU - I don't need politician in Ukraine who supported and supports on Balkans the same thing he is fighting against in Ukraine https://ausertimes.blogspot.com/2023/08/nato-and-eu-i-dont-need-politician-in.html
--- I call NATO TO STOP SUPPLYING UKRAINE WITH WEAPONRY and European Union to BLOCK UKRAINIAN accession to European Union because of Ukrainian meddling into Slovenian internal affairs through continuous support for genocide against me which Ukraine have exercised together with Russia for the sake of new Yugoslavia https://ausertimes.blogspot.com/2023/08/i-call-nato-to-stop-supplying-ukraine.html
--- MACEDONIANS ENGAGED IN VIOLENCE AGAINST ME TOGETHER WITH SERBS IN MOSCOW SINCE MY 14(1985) IF NOT EARLIER http://ausertimes.blogspot.com/2023/08/macedonians-engaged-in-violence-against.html
--- In the face of new Serbian aggression on Kosovo Albanians, I call European Union to recognize by Serbia occupied Hungarian Voivodina a righteous part of Hungarian state - as such, Voivodina should be returned to its people https://ausertimes.blogspot.com/2023/08/in-face-of-new-serbian-aggression-on.html
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