TWO more oligarchs have been sanctioned by the UK Government as Downing Street faces pressure to take quicker action.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss announced the new penalties this evening, following speculation that her department was struggling to build watertight legal cases for sanctioning wealthy Russians.
She announced that Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov, who are worth around $19bn combined, would have their assets frozen and banned from travel to the UK immediately.
The Foreign Secretary also announced that an oligarch taskforce, which would work on targetting her "hit list" of Russian elites, would be launched next week.
Both of the sanctioned oligarchs have close links to the Kremlin, and interests in the UK.
Mr Usmanov has shares in Arsenal football club and a business interest in Everton.
He is also the owner of the £48million Beechwood House in Highgate, London, and the 16th century Sutton Place estate in Surrey.
Igor Shuvalov’s assets in the UK include two luxury apartments in central London worth an estimated £11m.
The Foreign Office said he was a core part of Putin’s inner circle, and headed up Russia’s bid for the 2018 Football World Cup.
The Foreign Secretary said: "Our message to Putin and his allies has been clear from day one - invading Ukraine would have serious and crippling economic consequences.
"Sanctioning Usmanov and Shuvalov sends a clear message that we will hit oligarchs and individuals closely associated with the Putin regime and his barbarous war. We won't stop here.
"Our aim is to cripple the Russian economy and starve Putin's war machine."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel