The British government has allowed 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. » | Jane Bradley, Reporting from London | Thursday, July 27, 2023
