Punish the oligarchs, Alexei Navalny tells Theresa May
The Times copypaste
Russia’s main opposition leader has called on Theresa May to punish the Kremlin for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal by moving against politicians and business leaders with assets in the UK.
Alexei Navalny, 41, said that the tycoons Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov should come under scrutiny, as well as Igor Shuvalov, a wealthy deputy prime minister of Russia with assets in London.
Mr Navalny said that measures being proposed by MPs such as banning the Kremlin television channel, RT, in Britain and a boycott by officials of the World Cup in Russia would play into President Putin’s hands.
He added that all his arguments were predicated on the UK proving that Russia was involved in the attempted murder of Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33. If that was demonstrated there were two possible scenarios, he said in comments posted on his channel in the Telegram messaging app.
The first was “according to Putin’s scenario”, but the second was “according to a scenario that will be unpleasant to Putin”.
“What does Putin want to get out of the British authorities?” Mr Navalny wrote. “A ban on broadcasting of RT and representatives of the British leadership not coming to the World Cup.
“The national team not showing up would also be OK, [as would] dispensing more help to Ukraine, ‘an agreed position with Nato’ and other such rubbish that won’t influence anything — but would allow three more seasons of the series, ‘Look how the West is infringing on and disparaging Mother Russia, they are even blocking our television channel while wanting to teach us democracy’.”
Mr Navalny said that a different approach was need to hurt the Kremlin. “The unpleasant scenario for Putin would be if the English finally chuck out from their country dozens of our officials and oligarchs with their families and money,” he wrote. “And here there are three key surnames: Abramovich, Usmanov and Shuvalov.”
Mr Abramovich is the owner of Chelsea Football Club, while the billionaire Mr Usmanov is a shareholder in Arsenal. Neither of them is accused of any wrongdoing, although they are broadly seen in Russia as being part of an oligarch caste that made its money during the murky 1990s.
Mr Shuvalov is owns a luxury Thameside apartment. He says he made his money as a businessman before becoming a politician.
Mr Navalny also said that Britain should “at last start using its wonderful Bribery Act against out swindlers”.
The Bribery Act was introduced in 2010 and allows prosecution of an individual or company with links to the United Kingdom, regardless of where the crime occurred. Sections 6 and 7 cover “bribery of foreign public officials” and “failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery”.
Mr Navalny wrote to the Serious Fraud Office last month asking it to investigate Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who is closely aligned with the Kremlin. He had published an investigation alleging that Mr Deripaska had met Sergei Prikhodko, a deputy prime minister, on a yacht belonging to the businessman off the coast of Norway in 2016.
Mr Navalny alleged that providing the yacht trip amounted to bribery. Both men denied wrongdoing.
Mr Deripaska is the founder and principal owner of Basic Element, a huge industrial conglomerate, and is worth an estimated $5.2 billion. En+ Group, which manages his aluminium and hydropower businesses, floated on the UK stock exchange in November.