From football club owner to former KGB officer – who's who in government’s new sanctions list
Seven oligarchs have been hit with sanctions following the announcement by the UK government yesterday.
Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, who recently announced his intention to sell the club in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, is perhaps the most widely known of the new additions to the list, which now contains more than 200 individuals.
Here, we at who has been added, and the reasons. Roman Abramovich
The 55-year-old Chelsea owner is also the largest stakeholder in London-listed Russian-focused steel mining and manufacturing company Evraz. The Russian-israeli is worth an estimated £9.4 billion.
Oleg Deripaska
In November 2017, the oligarch was able to float aluminium producer EN+ Group on the London Stock Exchange, reportedly raising £1.5bn.
This was despite his "wellknown" links to the Kremlin and reports that both MI6 and US security officials had raised "seriousconcerns".the54-yearold's wealth is estimated to be £2.3bn, and has a multi-million poundpropertyportfoliointhe UK.
Andrey Kostin
President and chairman of Russia's second-largest bank, VTB, which is controlled by the state and a "close associate" of Mr Putin who has "long supported" the Kremlin and has a net worth of an estimated £379 million.
Dmitri Lebedev
The 54-year-old Russian is the chairman of the board of privately owned Bank Rossiya, considered by the US to be "the personal bank for senior officials of the Russian Federation"includingmrputin'sinner circle.
Alexei Miller
Long-time head of state-controlled Russian natural gas giant Gazprom, a firm known in the UK for sponsoring football tournaments including the Uefa Champions League.
Igor Sechin
The 61-year-old Russian chief executive of state oil firm Rosneft is deemed a particularly close and influential ally of Mr Putin.
Nikolai Tokarev
The 71-year-old president of the state-owned pipeline companytransneftisaformerkgb officerwhoservedalongsidemr Putinineastgermanytowards the end of the Cold War.
Calls for ‘Berlin airlift’ style drop of food, fuel and other goods for civilians
Humanitarian corridors to allow aid to be sent to Ukrainian communities under attack should be created in the style of the Berlin airlift of 1948, Ukrainian groups have urged.
Local mayors have called for humanitarian corridors to be open to aid as some towns and cities report being short of basic water and food supplies. They warned while there is not safe passage for humanitarian organisations, aid would not be delivered to those in need.
The calls come as the International Red Cross warned food and water supplies are reaching “dangerously low levels” in the besieged port city of Mariupol, where a maternity hospital was bombed on Wednesday, killing three people, including a child. A total of 17 people were also injured, including
staff and patients, according to local officials.
Sasha Volkov, the organisation's delegation head in the city, said the situation was so dire that people have "started to attack each other for food".
He said while "some sort of a black market with vegetables" has emerged in Mariupol, "you can’t find meat or something like this".
In a Telegram post, the city council said homes were being hit by bombs in a new round of attacks on Thursday.
During the Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948 to 1949, Allied cargo planes would use open air corridors over the Soviet occupation zone to deliver food, fuel and other goods to the people who lived in the western part of the city. This project, code-named “Operation Vittles” by the American military,
was known as the “Berlin airlift”.
At the beginning of the operation, the planes delivered about 5,000 tons of supplies to West Berlin every day. By the end, those loads had increased to about 8,000 tons of supplies per day. The Allies carried about 2.3 million tons of cargo in all over the course of the airlift.
A spokeswoman for the Ukrainian volunteer Journalists and Communicators initiative, a grassroots group set up by more than 100 Ukrainian communications professionals, said: “With current humanitarian ways not efficient, Ukraine is in dire need of alternative roots of aid delivery. A new take of the Berlin Airlift could be a way to solve at least the most dire parts of the crisis, providing effective support for thousands of civilians in Ukraine.
"It is not such a radical solution as military aid, but a quite reliable insurance against the most radical actions of Russia, which it can resort to due to the persistent resistance of Ukrainians fighting for their lives, home and freedom."
Mayors of towns struggling for supplies echoed calls for humanitarian corridors.
“I ask everyone who makes decisions – make a green corridor for departure. Make a humanitarian corridor for the delivery of humanitarian aid. There is humanitarian aid, but who will take it to us under artillery fire?” said Izyum’s mayor Volodymyr Matsokin on his Facebook page.
Locals say there is no food, water, light, gas, heat and no phone coverage in the town, in the east of Ukraine.