Seven oligarchs targeted with £15bn sanction hit

Among those hit with sanctions - who have a collective net worth of around £15bn - include Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, industrialist Oleg Deripaska and energy company Rosneft chief executive Igor Sechin. 

VTB bank chairman Andrey Kostin, Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller, Nikolai Tokarev - president of the Russia state-owned pipeline company Transneft - and Dmitri Lebedev, chairman of the board of directors of Bank Rossiya, are the others that have been sanctioned. 

It will see these individuals have their assets in the UK frozen, banned from travelling to the UK and no UK citizen or company may do business with them. 

Commenting on the news, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “There can be no safe havens for those who have supported Putin’s vicious assault on Ukraine.

“Today’s sanctions are the latest step in the UK’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people. We will be ruthless in pursuing those who enable the killing of civilians, destruction of hospitals and illegal occupation of sovereign allies.”

Foreign secretary Liz Truss added: “Today’s sanctions show once again that oligarchs and kleptocrats have no place in our economy or society. With their close links to Putin they are complicit in his aggression.

“The blood of the Ukrainian people is on their hands. They should hang their heads in shame.

“Our support for Ukraine will not waver. We will not stop in this mission to ramp up the pressure on the Putin regime and choke off funds to his brutal war machine.” 

It comes ahead of the Economic Crime Bill coming into force next week, which the government says will significantly simplify the process of imposing sanctions, allowing the UK to more easily sanction individuals. It will also stop oligarchs threatening the UK with multi-million pound lawsuits for damages at the taxpayer’s expense and also allow the UK to mirror allies’ designations. 

Among the assets frozen for Ambramovich includes Chelsea, meaning the sale of the football club is now on hold. In order to limit the potential knock effects of this, the government has published a licence which authorises a number of football-related activities to continue. 

This includes permissions for the club to continue playing matches and other football-related activity which will, in turn, protect the Premier League and wider football pyramid. The licence will allow fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket holders to attend matches.

Season ticket holders can still attend games they have tickets for but the club can not sell any more tickets for games. Its merchandise shop will also be closed.