How Russian oligarchs want to get around sanctions Farmers are raising too many pigs, but no one wants to stop it – why exactly?

Oligarchs with alleged ties to the Kremlin have come into the focus of authorities following the Russian attack on Ukraine. Western countries have frozen their accounts and confiscated their property. In Britain alone, assets worth nearly €21 billion were confiscated, and €17 billion were frozen from EU authorities.

The oligarchs are defending themselves against these sanctions – or avoiding them. Most try to stay under the radar of the authorities and not attract attention. Others are taking costly legal action against Western governments, while others are seeking refuge in countries without sanctions.

Banker needs 67,300 francs a month to live

For example, Russian banker Petr Aven recently asked the British government to release part of his assets. His family needs the equivalent of about 67,300 francs a month to meet their daily needs. He himself has “no financial or political ties” to the Kremlin. Aven, who co-founded the private equity firm LetterOne with fellow oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, now lives in Latvia.

He and many other sanctioned businessmen are now using their wealth to legally defend against sanctions in the UK and the EU. In addition to Aven and Fridman, Roman Abramovich and Alischer Usmanow are also among the plaintiffs.

Aluminum billionaire Oleg Deripaska is also going to court, albeit against the US government in Washington. According to Forbes magazine, his fortune halved in the first year of the war and now stands at the equivalent of 1.6 billion euros. But things got tight for him in his native Russia too: according to reports, authorities there stormed a hotel that belonged to him. He had therefore described the war in Ukraine as such – which is a criminal offense in Russia.

Abramovich’s fortune has been cut in half

The well-known oligarch Roman Abramovich also had to molt last year, although he initially wanted to arrange peace talks between Kiev and Moscow and praised his good relations with the West: according to Forbes, his assets have also been halved to around 6.6 billion euros. The billionaire also owned London football club Chelsea FC for nearly 20 years, which was acquired by an investor group led by American businessman Todd Boehly.

Abramovich was last seen several times in Israel, of which he is a citizen. The co-founder of the Russian search engine Yandex was also subject to sanctions, now lives permanently in Israel and now runs Yandex business there. You can read more about it here.

The United Arab Emirates and Turkey are also younger destinations for the super-rich. Neither state punishes the Russian business elite – thus developing an attraction: a neighborhood in Dubai is now called “Little Moscow”.

But despite the difficulties, the oligarchs still have large sums of money at their disposal. “It’s hard to say how much the oligarchs’ wealth has suffered because we don’t know how much they once owned,” Jodi Vittori told AFP. Vittori is Professor of Government Corruption and Illicit Financing at Georgetown University in the US.

Not an easy task for the authorities

The confiscation of property belonging to oligarchs is also not an easy task for authorities: schemes using tax havens, anonymous funds, shell companies or family members all too often obscure the true ownership of assets. According to a report by the anti-corruption organization Transparency International UK, it is not known exactly which investors own 52,000 properties in London.

There are still “too many ways” for oligarchs to “evade sanctions,” concludes the organization’s political chief Duncan Hames. “We suspect they’re just keeping their feet still and waiting for better days.”

According to Vittori, the oligarchs have no direct influence on decisions in the Kremlin. Yet they play a role for Moscow because they provide important help. This includes, for example, supplying mercenaries, as businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin does with his infamous Wagner group. “The importance of oligarchs does not stem simply from their influence, but from their ability to do certain things for the regime: for example, supplying mercenaries, acquiring important raw materials for the war economy, or laundering money for the regime or Putin himself,” Vittori said. . “So sanctions are still important.”

(afp, t-online)