‘Only sanctions will stop Russia invading Ukraine’
BRITAIN and her allies must act now to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs if Moscow is to be deterred from invading Ukraine, an expert dubbed “Putin’s number one enemy” warned last night.
Bill Browder, a Us-british financier who claims his investments in Russia were looted by corrupt officials, said that there were many “legitimate targets” to go after financially.
The country’s oligarchs have ploughed more than £450billion into the City since 1994, of which around £260million a year has been revenue. Benefactors have included UK asset management firms and estate agents – which received an annual £100million for Russian property purchases alone.
Mr Browder’s lawyer was Sergei Magnitsky, whose death in custody in 2009 led him to lobby for the Magnitsky Act, which allows countries to sanction those it sees as human rights offenders and freeze their assets.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has already promised to mirror US President Joe Biden’s pledge to impose “an unprecedented package of sanctions” should Vladimir Putin authorise a further incursion into Ukrainian soil. In an unusual step, she even indicated that seizing properties belonging to oligarchs with Kremlin connections is “not off the table”.
Yesterday the first of 2,000 US troops arrived in Germany following pledges by Joe Biden to deploy an extra 3,000 troops to support Nato allies as tensions between Russia and the West continue to mount. The soldiers of the 18th Airborne Corps will be sent to Poland, and a further Stryker squadron of around 1,000 troops sent to Romania.
And Ukraine is preparing for any invasion by sending young people on military training boot camps in the capital, Kyiv.
Last night Mr Browder warned that only concrete measures taken before any imminently expected invasion would persuade Putin that Britain has finally shrugged off a two-decade habit of ignoring the provenance of Russian “dirty money”.
The anti-corruption campaigner said: “Putin is weighing up the risk and rewards of invading now. If he doesn’t think the risks are real – and they have to be real to him personally, not to some state-owned company – he’ll carry on and invade.
“Dirty money the UK has allowed to flow in unimpeded for 20 years has been a blemish on policy – but this now creates a huge opportunity. The only way the Government can prove it is serious is to start before he invades.”
Mr Browder’s call comes as UK Special Forces in Poland say Russian forces are fitting aircraft transponders to ground vehicles at military air bases in Belarus to exaggerate the number of fighter jets there.
The 18 (UKSF) Signal Regiment identified 15 aircraft transponders fitted to ground vehicles, done to boost the number of warplanes that could be seen on tracking websites.
‘Target oligarchs now in
order to deter Putin’