EU freezes assets of major Russian oligarchs and Putin allies

The European Union has frozen assets and imposed travel restrictions on more than half a dozen of Russia’s most prominent oligarchs, many of whom are closely linked to President Vladimir Putin, as part of sanctions imposed on some of the country’s most powerful people after the invasion of Ukraine. .

Individuals affected by the measures include Mikhail Fridman, founder of Alfa Group, and his partner Petr Aven; Igor Sechin and Nikolai Tokarev, chief executives of the oil companies Rosneft and Transneft, respectively; and financier Alisher Usmanov.

The restrictions, which took effect immediately, are the latest in a round of increasingly punitive sanctions the European Union began implementing last week to damage Russia’s economy and undermine Putin’s war effort. Measures imposed by the United States and its Western allies against the Russian central bank have led to a sharp drop in the ruble and a frantic rush of bank withdrawals by Russian citizens.

Among those affected by the restrictive measures, decided by European Union member states on Monday, is Fridman, described in the European communiqué announcing the sanctions as “an important Russian financier and a member of President Putin’s circle of close friends”. The text adds that Fridman “actively supported, financially or materially, the Russian authorities responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Ukraine, and benefited from it.”

His bank, Alfa-Bank, was already under European Union sanctions for issuing bonds and shares, and taking out loans in the union territory for refinancing purposes, and the United States has imposed similar restrictions on financial transactions and sales of actions. Aven, meanwhile, has been described as “one of the oligarchs closest to the president”.

Gennady Timchenko, Putin’s old friend, founder and shareholder of the Volga Group, is also on the European Union’s list. He is a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, which is already under EU and UK sanctions.

Sechin, the chairman of Rosneft, is described as “one of Putin’s closest and most trusted advisers as well as one of his best friends”, has contact with the president every day and has been receiving financial gains “and important missions in retribution for their subordination and loyalty”.

Sechin is already subject to travel restrictions and an asset freeze by US authorities, and the measures extend to his son.

Tokarev, chief executive of Transneft, an oil company and pipeline operator in Russia, served with Putin in the KGB and the European Union claims he is one “of the state oligarchs who took control of large state assets in the 2000s when Putin consolidated its power, and which operates in close partnership with the Russian state”.

Other names on the list include Usmanov, one of Putin’s “favorite oligarchs”, and Sergei Roldugin, dubbed “Putin’s portfolio”, who holds his assets at Bank Rossiya.

The European Union cites an investigation by an international media consortium according to which Roldugin is responsible for “moving” at least $2 billion through banks and offshore companies as part of Putin’s hidden financial network.

Another Rossiya shareholder and businessman on the European list is Alexei Mordashov, chairman of steelmaker Severstal and Severgroup, which the European Union says controls television stations that actively support Moscow’s policies to destabilize Ukraine. He also owns 34% of the Tui group, a German-listed travel company.

Severstal on Monday released a statement on behalf of Mordashov in response to the sanctions. “I have never been close to politics and have always focused on creating economic value in the companies I have worked for, both in Russia and abroad.”

The statement added that “I cannot understand how these sanctions will contribute to the resolution of the appalling conflict in Ukraine.”

Fridman and Aven are “deeply shocked by the demonstrably false allegations … which are alleged to underpin the sanctions against them,” said LetterOne, the private equity firm they both run in London.

“They will fight this injustice with all their might – for themselves and the tens of thousands of employees who depend on them in the UK and Europe,” LetterOne said. The two “have always been fully transparent about their business and source of wealth. Sanctioning them on the basis of malevolent and unproven gossip will have no impact on Russia’s activities in Ukraine.”

Usmanov declined to comment.

Alexander Ponomarenko, president of Moscow International Airport, is another oligarch on the list closely linked to Putin’s inner circle and the leadership of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Like several other oligarchs, Ponomarenko financed a palace complex believed to be personally used by Putin, the European Union said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov is also on the list.

The blacklist was expanded to include other government officials and military leaders. Sogaz, an insurance company that operates in the natural gas market and has insured the construction of the railway bridge connecting Crimea to Russia, has been added to the list of financial services companies included in the sanctions.

Six of the individuals affected by the European Union measures:

Igor Sechin is chief executive of Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer. A former member of the “siloviki”, the term used to describe figures with backgrounds in the armed forces and security services, he worked with Vladimir Putin when he was mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s. Putin took him to Moscow when he was invited to join the national government. Sechin was one of Putin’s assistants in the Kremlin and later assistant prime minister of Russia, before being appointed to the helm of Rosneft in 2012.

Alisher Usmanov is a Russian billionaire who was the richest man in the country for some time. Metals and technology tycoon, Usmanov was born in Uzbekistan and controls Russia’s second-largest telephone operator, MegaFon, and metals giant Metalloinvest, as well as other companies, through his USM Holdings. Usmanov was among the biggest investors in Facebook for some time, and owned a stake in Russia’s biggest internet company, Mail.ru, before selling it in 2021.

Mikhail Fridman is one of the founders of the Alfa Group, which controls the country’s largest private bank, Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest supermarket chain, X5, and mobile operator Veon. He runs the private equity group LetterOne, which he established in London with some partners in 2013, using $14 billion he raised from the sale of a stake in oil group TNK-BP to Rosneft to invest in energy, telecommunications and technology. Fridman divides his time between Moscow, where the Russian edition of Forbes magazine estimates his fortune at $15.5 billion, and London, where the Sunday Times newspaper ranked him the 11th richest man in the UK. He grew up in Lviv, in western Ukraine.

Petr Aven, Fridman’s partner, started at Alfa after serving as Russia’s foreign trade minister in the early 1990s, and is chairman of the group’s bank. He also divides his time between London and Moscow. Aven has published several books based on interviews with other bigwigs from Russia’s turbulent 1990s, including Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who died in 2013.

Nikolai Tokarev runs the state-owned oil company and pipeline operator Transneft. He was a KGB agent and served with Putin in Dresden, East Germany, in the 1980s. Tokarev previously ran Zarubezhneft, one of Russia’s biggest oil producers. Transneft built important pipelines during its tenure

Alexei Mordashov, Russia’s richest man, owns Severstal, one of the country’s largest steel mills. He started out as an economist at one of Severstal’s sites in Cherepovets, western Russia, and went on to become one of the company’s biggest shareholders. His other business interests include a 34% stake in German travel company Tui, and a 50% stake in Tele2, one of Russia’s largest telecom operators.

Translation by Paulo Migliacci