Just before the arrival in Moscow of its Minister of Defense, Ben Wallace, the Johnson government published, on Thursday February 10, a legislative text detailing sanctions against relatives of the Kremlin in the event of an attack on Ukraine by Russia. . These measures should enable the UK Treasury to freeze the assets in the UK of individuals or “any company having links with the Russian State, being engaged in significant economic exchanges with the Russian State or operating in a significant economic sector for the Russian State”.
This sanctions regime goes much further than the one previously available to London vis-à-vis the Kremlin, which only made it possible to target people and organizations seeking to destabilize Ukraine. “There will be no place to hide, these sanctions will be applied without fear or favouritism,” insisted Foreign Minister Liz Truss, returning Thursday from a meeting with her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. “ In the event of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, the costs for Russia will be considerable. The UK has put in place the toughest sanctions regime we have ever had »added the minister on Friday.
This text was eagerly awaited in London, but many believe that it arrives late and, above all, that it will not have the desired penalizing effect, as London has become, over the past twenty-five years, one of the hubs of the recycling of dirty money acquired by the Russian oligarchs, due to the prolonged inaction of the British governments.
“There are so many steps that should have been taken long before an entire army threatened Ukraine. We have been sounding the alarm for years about the role of dirty money in the UK and the lack of action by Tory governments,” castigated David Lammy and Rachel Reeves, respectively foreign and finance ministers in the Labor shadow cabinet in a letter made public on February 6.
No obligation of transparency
Many studies and parliamentary reports have warned of far too flexible national regulations: there is no obligation of transparency on the real owners of offshore companies buying real estate, which allows the laundering of dirty money. The NGO Transparency International says it has identified a total of £1billion (around €1.2billion) of properties bought by “suspicious” Russian money – possibly illicitly acquired.
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