The sanctions against Putin’s cronies are biting.
The Russian Oligarchs’ huge luxury yachts are fleeing to the Maldives, which does not have extradition agreements etc with the USA, EU and other sanctioning bodies. Another luxury oligarch yacht is stranded, short of fuel, in Norway with no one willing to give them any fuel.
Effectively it means many of those yachts have become just glitzy floating prisons or useless,hugely expensive white elephants to be hidden away.
The opportunities for Oligarchs for ostentatious luxury shopping for exclusive high end brands is very limited in the Maldives. You can buy hand crafted souvenirs made by locals but the jewellery, watches and fashion are not there.
Flying by private jet to London, New York, Paris or Milan to feed their addiction for extreme luxury goods risks such jets being seized. Slowly the world of the Russian oligarchs is contracting around them. The restriction in airspace and the slide in the value of the rouble means trips back to Russia are very unlikely.
Rich Russian Oligarchs are stuck, increasingly seen as pariahs, reliant on the pliant, accommodating Boris Johnson. Squatters are even moving into their frozen assets, their abandoned mansions.
But where did their billions come from? Where did the reputed $200 billion fortune of Vladimir Putin come from? When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian Mafia flourished. As the recent Panorama television programme on Roman Abramovich showed, it was dodgy deals, seizing the rich natural assets of Russia at often knockdown prices. It was the Russian people who lost out, ripped off by the would be oligarchs
In the Soviet Union forty years ago, the Russian Health Service was highly regarded. It has now slid to a ranking of 58th out of 89 countries, with a low score also for the quality of its infrastructure. Outside the major cities public hospitals are few and far between. One Russian health service survey found filthy hospitals, crumbling buildings and even drunken doctors and paramedics.
The latest World Health Organisation figures show the life expectancy of Russians to be just 71.9 years – for men just 66.4 years – which ranks the country 105th in the world!
The Russian Oligarchs are parasites who have siphoned off money that otherwise would have benefitted the Russian people. Vladimir Putin encouraged and enabled this, as long as he got his substantial cut.
The corruption and sleaze explains why these Oligarchs came to London, to launder their dirty money. Boris Johnson shamelessly cosied up to them, even gave one a peerage, (interestingly Baron Lebedev of Siberia calls his dog Boris!)
In return the Oligarchs gave millions to the Tory Party. They held lavish parties, one in Italy was attended by Johnson, when Foreign Secretary, with no Foreign Office staff or security in attendance, which raised questions, especially when he was seen slumped at the airport afterwards, waiting for a return flight, looking as if he had slept in his clothes!
Was the deep seated corruption among Tory MPs over Covid inspired by the corruption of Russian Oligarchs? Did they give tips on how to loot the British funding system?
Was the slow implementation of sanctions against the Russian Oligarchs and then the seeming reluctance to allow in Ukraine war refugees, an indication of the power and influence of Russian money in London and over the Tory government?
The fact such questions need to be asked shows the dark shadow that Russian influence casts over our democracy.
Andrew Milroy
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