Jewish community donors sanctioned for alleged links to Putin

The UK has imposed sanctions on 370 Russian and Belarusian individuals with alleged links to Vladimir Putin, including billionaires who have made significant donations to Jewish communal organisations.

The Foreign Office said that the new list included “Russian oligarchs and their family members, Putin’s political allies and propagandists”.

It also said the new additions to the UK government’s sanction list included Putin’s “key political allies, regime spokespeople and Kremlin-backed disinformation agencies”.

Amongst the names on the new list were Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and German Khan – co-founders of the Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPG) , and all connected to the Alfa Group Consortium.

Fridman was a founder of Alfa Bank, the largest non-state controlled bank in Russia, Aven the head of the same bank until March 2022, while Khan was one of the original founders of Alfa Group Consortium. GPG has supported at least 10 major communal organisations in recent years, boosting areas like Holocaust education, youth volunteering and Jewish education.

Both Fridman and Ayen were both sanctioned by the European Union at the end of February for their ties to Putin, a move they described as “groundless and unfair”,

At the time, the pair released a joint announcement saying they would “contest the spurious and unfounded basis for the imposition of these sanctions – vigorously and through all means available to them.”

Other names on the new UK list include Putin’s prime minister Mikhail Mishustin, defence minister Sergei Shoigu and former president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev.

The Russian president’s chief spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Russian foreign affairs ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova were also named.

Individuals sanctioned on Tuesday will have their assets in the UK frozen, which means no UK citizen or company can do business with them and they are also banned from travelling to or from the UK.

The Foreign Office said the oligarchs sanctioned on Tuesday have a combined total wealth of more than £100 billion.

Foreign secretary Liz Truss said: “We are going further and faster than ever in hitting those closest to Putin – from major oligarchs, to his prime minister and the propagandists who peddle his lies and disinformation. We are holding them to account for their complicity in Russia’s crimes in Ukraine.

“Working closely with our allies, we will keep increasing the pressure on Putin and cut off funding for the Russian war machine.”

New laws to tackle “dirty money” in the UK were fast-tracked through parliament in a bid to target Russian elites.

The Economic Crime Bill received Royal Assent in the early hours of Tuesday, in a late sitting of parliament.

The Bill will establish a new register of overseas entities, requiring foreign owners of property in the UK to declare their true identity.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK has sanctioned more than 1,000 high-value individuals, entities, and subsidiaries from Russia and Belarus.

All of those named by the UK on Tuesday had already been placed under sanctions by the US, EU, Canada or Australia, which meant the UK could use new mirroring provisions of the act that received royal assent overnight.