Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Liz Truss announces full asset freeze against Russia’s biggest bank

Liz Truss announces full asset freeze against Russia’s biggest bank

Eight more oligarchs will also face sanctions and UK oil and coal imports will stop by end of year, says foreign secretary
The UK will impose an asset freeze on Russia’s largest bank, place sanctions on eight more oligarchs and end imports of oil and coal by next year, the foreign secretary has said.

Amid growing horror over alleged war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, Liz Truss announced that oligarchs including Andrey Guryev, a Russian fertiliser billionaire linked to Witanhurst, the UK’s second-largest private residence after Buckingham Palace, would be subject to sanctions.

Another is Moshe Kantor, the largest shareholder of the fertiliser company Acron. He has been a key figure in Britain’s Jewish community, hosting Holocaust memorial events attended by Prince Charles and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Others who have been placed under sanctions include Sergey Sergeyevich Ivanov, the president of the world’s largest diamond producer, Alrosa, and Leonid Mikhelson, the founder and chief executive of the leading Russian natural gas producer Novatek, with a net worth of £18bn.

Mikhelson, an avid art collector, founded a not-for-profit Russian contemporary art foundation, V-A-C, in 2009, which has since funded international collaborations.

Guryev was revealed in 2015 to be the beneficiary of an offshore company that owned the 25-bedroom Witanhurst mansion in Highgate, north London. He was targeted by EU sanctions a month ago.

Truss said sanctions were being stepped up after the massacre of civilians in Bucha by Russian soldiers. “Today, we are stepping up our campaign to bring Putin’s appalling war to an end with some of our toughest sanctions yet,” she said.

“Our latest wave of measures will bring an end to the UK’s imports of Russian energy and sanction yet more individuals and businesses, decimating Putin’s war machine. Together with our allies, we are showing the Russian elite that they cannot wash their hands of the atrocities committed on Putin’s orders. We will not rest until Ukraine prevails.”

Earlier Boris Johnson said Russian atrocities in the previously occupied towns around Kyiv did not “look far short of genocide to me”, in his strongest words to date about the mass killings. The UK has previously been reticent to use the term genocide in the absence of a court ruling.

The UK announcement came alongside similar measures from western allies including the EU, which has also banned imports of Russian coal. The US announced it was also imposing sanctions against Sberbank, Russian’s largest bank, along with the UK. Washington said it would target two of Putin’s adult daughters, Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, with sanctions.

The UK will impose asset freezes on Sberbank and Credit Bank of Moscow and put in place an outright ban on all new outward investment in Russia, which was worth £11bn in 2020.

By the end of 2022, the UK would end all dependency on Russian coal and oil, the sanctions announcement said, with a pledge to end imports of gas “as soon as possible thereafter”. Export bans will also be put in place on key oil refining equipment, as well as a ban on imports of iron and steel products.

Nato foreign ministers will meet at a working dinner on Wednesday night and a formal meeting on Thursday morning, and Truss will meet G7 foreign ministers later on Thursday.

The Foreign Office said there should be an accelerated timetable agreed for all G7 countries to end their dependency on Russian energy, designed to put pressure on European countries.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
High-Speed Train Collision in Southern Spain Kills at Least Twenty-One and Injures Scores
No Sign of an AI Bubble as Tech Giants Double Down at World’s Largest Technology Show
Trump to hit Europe with 10% tariffs until Greenland deal is agreed
Cybercrime, Inc.: When Crime Becomes an Economy. How the World Accidentally Built a Twenty-Trillion-Dollar Criminal Economy
Woman Claiming to Be Freddie Mercury’s Secret Daughter Dies at Forty-Eight After Rare Cancer Battle
EU Seeks ‘Farage Clause’ in Brexit Reset Talks With Britain
Germany Hit by Major Airport Strikes Disrupting European Travel
Russia Deploys Hypersonic Missile in Strike on Ukraine
There is no sovereign immunity for poisoning millions with drugs.
Béla Tarr, Visionary Hungarian Filmmaker, Dies at Seventy After Long Illness
German Intelligence Secretly Intercepted Obama’s Air Force One Communications
The U.S. State Department’s account in Persian: “President Trump is a man of action. If you didn’t know it until now, now you do—do not play games with President Trump.”
President Trump Says United States Will Administer Venezuela Until a Secure Leadership Transition
Delta Force Identified as Unit Behind U.S. Operation That Captured Venezuela’s President
Europe’s Luxury Sanctions Punish Russian Consumers While a Sanctions-Circumvention Industry Thrives
Europe’s Largest Defence Groups Set to Return Nearly Five Billion Dollars to Shareholders in Twenty Twenty-Five
Diamonds Are Powering a New Quantum Revolution
The Battle Over the Internet Explodes: The United States Bars European Officials and Ignites a Diplomatic Crisis
Fine Wine Investors Find Little Cheer in Third Year of Falls
Caviar and Foie Gras? China Is Becoming a Luxury Food Powerhouse
Hackers Are Hiding Malware in Open-Source Tools and IDE Extensions
Traveling to USA? Homeland Security moving toward requiring foreign travelers to share social media history
Trump in Direct Assault: European Leaders Are Weak, Immigration a Disaster. Russia Is Strong and Big — and Will Win
EU Firms Struggle with 3,000-Hour Paperwork Load — While Automakers Fear De Facto 2030 Petrol Car Ban
White House launches ‘Hall of Shame’ site to publicly condemn media outlets for alleged bias
European States Approve First-ever Military-Grade Surveillance Network via ESA
The Ukrainian Sumo Wrestler Who Escaped the War — and Is Captivating Japan
MediaWorld Sold iPad Air for €15 — Then Asked Customers to Return Them or Pay More
Car Parts Leader Warns Europe Faces Heavy Job Losses in ‘Darwinian’ Auto Shake-Out
Families Accuse OpenAI of Enabling ‘AI-Driven Delusions’ After Multiple Suicides
U.S. Envoys Deliver Ultimatum to Ukraine: Sign Peace Deal by Thursday or Risk Losing American Support
The U.S. State Department Announces That Mass Migration Constitutes an Existential Threat to Western Civilization and Undermines the Stability of Key American Allies
A Decade of Innovation Stagnation at Apple: The Cook Era Critique
German Entertainment Icons Alice and Ellen Kessler Die Together at Age 89
AI Researchers Claim Human-Level General Intelligence Is Already Here
Tragedy in Serbia: Coach Mladen Žižović Collapses During Match and Dies at 44
Trump–Putin Budapest Summit Cancelled After Moscow Memo Raises Conditions for Ukraine Talks
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
US Administration Under President Donald Trump Reportedly Lifts Ban on Ukraine’s Use of Storm Shadow Missiles Against Russia
White House Announces No Imminent Summit Between Trump and Putin
China Presses Netherlands to “properly” Resolve the Nexperia Seizure as Supply Chain Risks Grow
Merz Attacks Migrants, Sparks Uproar, and Refuses to Apologize: “Ask Your Daughters”
Apple Challenges EU Digital Markets Act Crackdown in Landmark Court Battle
Shouting Match at the White House: 'Trump Cursed, Threw Maps, and Told Zelensky – "Putin Will Destroy You"'
‘No Kings’ Protests Inflate Numbers — But History Shows Nations Collapse Without Strong Executive Power
"The Tsunami Is Coming, and It’s Massive": The World’s Richest Man Unveils a New AI Vision
EU Moves to Use Frozen Russian Assets to Buy U.S. Weapons for Ukraine
Europe Emerges as the Biggest Casualty in U.S.-China Rare Earth Rivalry
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
×