Thursday, March 10, 2022

Exclusive-EU to sanction more Russian oligarchs, Belarus banks over Ukraine invasion -sources



Tue, March 8, 2022
By Francesco Guarascio, Jan Strupczewski and John Chalmers

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission has prepared a new package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine that will hit additional Russian oligarchs and politicians and three Belarusian banks, three sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

The draft sanctions were adopted by the EU executive on Tuesday morning and will be discussed by EU ambassadors at a meeting starting at 1400 GMT, one source said.

The draft package will ban three Belarusian banks from the SWIFT banking system and add several more oligarchs and Russian lawmakers to the EU blacklist, the sources told Reuters.

The package also bans exports from the EU of naval equipment and software to Russia and provides guidance on the monitoring of cryptocurrencies to avoid their use to circumvent EU sanctions, the sources said.

Moscow describes its actions in Ukraine as a "special operation" to disarm its neighbour and arrest leaders it calls "neo-Nazis". Ukraine and its Western allies call this a baseless pretext for an invasion to conquer a country of 44 million people.

EU diplomats have so far approved sanctions proposed by the EU Commission against Russia and Belarus without any changes.

The EU has already excluded seven Russian banks from SWIFT, but had not included Belarusian banks.

The sources declined to name the new lenders to be sanctioned.

One source said the package also listed oligarchs and members of Russia's Federation Council, which is the upper house of the Russian Parliament.

So far EU sanctions have hit hundreds of members of the lower house, the Duma, who voted in favour of Russia's recognition of the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

The EU will also expand its ban on EU exports of advanced technology to Russia, mostly supporting the ban on the export of maritime technology, the sources said.

The ban on the export of naval equipment and software to Russia is mainly meant to hit its shipping sector, one source said.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio @fraguarascio, Jan Strupczewski and John Chalmers; Editing by Catherine Evans and Nick Macfie)


3 Russian billionaires resign from board of $22 billion investment firm LetterOne after it locked out 2 Russian oligarchs over the invasion of Ukraine

Kate Duffy
Tue, March 8, 2022


In this article:


German Khan, Alexei Kuzmichev, and Andrei Kosogov have left the investment firm LetterOne.


They weren't sanctioned but thought stepping down was in the company's interests, LetterOne said.


It comes less than a week after sanctioned oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven left the firm.


Three Russian billionaires have resigned from the board of a $22 billion investment firm amid their country's ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

It comes after London-based LetterOne froze out Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, who are subject to Western sanctions, blocking access to their buildings last week and forbidding them to talk to employees.

German Khan, Alexei Kuzmichev, and Andrei Kosogov — who are not subject to any sanctions — all stepped down from their positions with the company on Monday.

"None of these three individuals has been sanctioned, but they believe that this is the right thing to do in the long-term interests of LetterOne, its employees, and the many jobs it supports in its portfolio companies," the firm said in a statement sent to Insider.

Khan, 60, who helped to found LetterOne and is a partner in Alfa Group, said in the statement that he supported the board's actions and called for an end to the war.

"The majority of LetterOne founders have deep roots in Ukraine, and the destruction of the cities where I spent my childhood and which are home to the graves of our ancestors is heartbreaking," said Khan, who has a net worth of almost $6.9 billion, according to a Bloomberg estimate.

Kuzmichev, 59, was a cofounder of Alfa-Bank, the biggest private bank in Russia, and has a net worth of about $5.2 billion, according to Bloomberg. Kosogov, 60, is a member of Alfa Group's board and is valued at $1.2 billion, according to Forbes' estimates.

LetterOne also said in Monday's statement that Fridman and Aven, who left the company's board on Wednesday, had their shares in the firm "frozen indefinitely" and can't receive dividends or other financial funds from LetterOne.

Mervyn Davies, the chairman who is now in charge of LetterOne, told the Financial Times that they were locked out of the offices, blocked from accessing documents, and banned from speaking with employees.

LetterOne is set to donate $150 million to help people affected by the war in Ukraine, and shareholders have agreed that all dividends will go toward relief efforts, the company's statement said.







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