Fresh sanctions have been placed on those helping Russian oligarchs continue to do business in the UK – including fixers for Roman Abramovich and ex-Arsenal FC shareholder Alisher Usmanov.
Former Chelsea owner Mr Abramovich and Mr Usmanov, who also had a stake in Everton FC, were both sanctioned in March 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine the month before as they are said to have close ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin – which Mr Abramovich denies.
Oligarchs had more than £18bn in assets frozen in the UK due to the initial sanctions.
But many were still able to operate in the UK through financial fixers, family members, offshore trusts and shell companies.
More than a year since those initial sanctions were imposed the government has now identified and sanctioned several people who were helping oligarchs continue to do business in the UK.
‘Murky web’ of offshore finance
Two Cypriots working for Mr Abramovich and Mr Usmanov are the key pair affected by the new measures.
The Foreign Office said corporate services provider Demetris Ioannides is responsible for “crafting the murky offshore structures” used to hide more than £760m of Mr Abramovich’s assets before the oligarch was sanctioned last year.
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While lawyer Christodoulos Vassiliades is “at the centre of a web of trusts and offshore companies” linking Mr Usmanov and the Sutton Place Estate, the Tudor manor house owned by the Russian near Guildford, Surrey, previously owned by J Paul Getty.
Image: Close Putin ally Alisher Usmanov was also sanctioned last year
Mr Usmanov’s financial network has also been sanctioned, including Curzon Square Limited, the company that acted as his London office and leaseholder of a 72-room Grade II-listed mansion in Mayfair’s Curzon Square, a short walk from Buckingham Palace.
He transferred Curzon Square Ltd’s stake in the mansion to his business empire, Russia’s largest iron ore producer Metalloinvest, just three days before the invasion of Ukraine.
As the sanctions were only initially placed on him, Curzon Square Ltd was free to control property interests in London.
USM, the company that Mr Usmanov has major shares in and owns Metalloinvest, is also included in the new measures.
Hanley Limited, an Isle of Man-based company – through which Mr Usmanov bought Grade II listed Beechwood House in Hampstead, north London for £48m in 2008 – has also now been sanctioned.
The father and daughter of Mr Usmanov’s business partner Andrei Skoch – Vladimir and Varvara Skoch – were sanctioned, too.
Image: Mr Usmanov’s superyacht Dilbar, the world’s largest by gross tonnage, was seized in Germany last year
‘We are closing the net on the Russian elite’
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said: “We are closing the net on the Russian elite and those who try to help them hide their money for war.
“There’s no place to hide. We will keep cutting them off from assets they thought were successfully hidden.
“Together with our international partners the UK will continue to crack down on those who are supporting the war. We won’t stop until Putin does.”
Family members of other sanctioned oligarchs, who the government says are being used as proxies to hide their assets, are the others who have been sanctioned in the latest round of measures.
They include the daughter, son and wife of Vladimir Evtushankov, the billionaire majority owner and founder of Russian conglomerate Sistema, which specialises in banking and hotels, and formerly aerospace and defence.
Gulnara Kerimova, daughter of billionaire oligarch and Russian politician Suleyman Kerimov, a major stakeholder in Gazprom, Uralkali and Sberbank, has been sanctioned as she holds four luxury villas in France on behalf of her father.
Mr Kerimov’s nephew, Nariman Gadzhiev, is also on the list as he acts as a beneficiary owner of a series of shell companies connected to his uncle, including one that transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to companies linked to Mr Kerimov.
Oksana Marchenko, the wife of key Putin ally and former Ukrainian politician Victor Medvedchuk, and the owner of multiple luxury properties in Crimea, finishes off the new list of sanctioned individuals.
The Ukrainian president said the meeting ahead of Pope Francis’s funeral could end up being “historic.” Hours later, Mr Trump questioned Vladimir Putin’s appetite for peace in a Truth Social post.
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2:49
From Saturday: Trump meets Zelenskyy at funeral
Speaking before boarding Air Force One on Sunday, Mr Trump again said the meeting went well, and that the Ukrainianleader was “calmer”.
“I think he understands the picture, I think he wants to make a deal,” he said, before turning to Mr Putin and Russia.
“I want him to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal,” the US president said, adding he was “very disappointed that they did the bombing of those places (including Kyiv, where nine people were killed in a Russian airstrike on Friday) after discussions”.
However, Mr Trump said he thinks Mr Zelenskyy is ready to give up Crimea, which the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said he would refuse to do.
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He added that “we’ll see what happens in the next few days” and said “don’t talk to me about Crimea, talk to Obama and Biden about Crimea”.
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, while Barack Obama was president.
Meanwhile, US secretary of state Marco Rubio told Sky’s US partner network NBC News that a peace deal to end the war was “closer in general than they’ve been any time in the last three years, but it’s still not there”.
“If this was an easy war to end, it would have been ended by someone else a long time ago,” he added on the Meet the Press show.
It comes after North Korea confirmed it had deployed troops to fight for Russia, months after Ukraine and Western officials said its forces were in Europe.
State media outlet KCNA reported North Korean soldiers made an “important contribution” to expelling Ukrainian forces from Russian territory, likely to be the Kursk region.
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KCNA said leader Kim Jong Un made the decision to deploy troops to Russia and notified Moscow, and quoted him as saying: “They who fought for justice are all heroes and representatives of the honour of the motherland.”
It also quoted the country’s ruling Workers’ Party as saying the end of the battle to liberate Kursk showed the “highest strategic level of the firm militant friendship” between North Korea and Russia.
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1:26
From June 2024: Putin drives Kim around in luxury limo during state visit
The North Korean leader promised at the time “full support and solidarity to the Russian government, army and people in carrying out the special military operation in Ukraine”.
At least 40 people have been killed and several hundred more injured after an explosion and fire at Iran’s largest port, according to state media.
The blast, at the Shahid Rajaei container hub near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, happened on Saturday as Iran held a third round of talks with the US in Oman about Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Shipping containers burned, goods inside were badly damaged and the explosion was so powerful that windows several miles away were shattered, reports said.
Image: Iranian Red Crescent rescuers work at the site of the blast. Pic: Reuters
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0:26
The blast at the Shahid Rajaei port happened as Iran and the US met for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Helicopters and aircraft dumped water from the air on the blaze and by Sunday afternoon it was 90% extinguished, the head of Iran’s Red Crescent Society told state media.
Officials said port activities had resumed in unaffected parts of Shahid Rajaei.
Out of the 752 people who had received treatment for their injuries, 190 were still being treated in medical centres on Sunday, according to Iran’s crisis management organisation.
Chemicals at the port were suspected to have worsened the blast, but the exact cause of the explosion was not clear.
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Iran’s defence ministry denied international media reports that the explosion may be connected to the mishandling of solid fuel used for missiles.
The reports were “aligned with enemy psyops [psychological operations]”, according to a ministry spokesperson, who told state TV the blast-hit area did not contain any military cargo.
Image: Firefighters work to extinguish the blaze. Pic: AP
According to the Associated Press, British security company Ambrey said that the port in March received sodium perchlorate, which is used to propel ballistic missiles and the mishandling of which could have led to the explosion.
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The Financial Times previously reported two Iranian vessels had shipped from China enough of the ingredient to propel up to 260 mid-range missiles.
It was reportedly to help Tehran replenish stocks after its missile attacks on Israel in 2024.
Iran’s military has sought to deny the delivery of sodium perchlorate from China.
Iran’s state-run Irna news agency reported on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed several emergency aircraft to Bandar Abbas to provide help.
Anna and Irene have already been queuing for an hour or so, and they know they have a long wait still to come.
“Two hours, three hours, ten hours – what does it matter?” says Irena. “This is about eternity.”
They have come to Rome from Slovenia, Catholics who felt “Papa Francis would have wanted us to be here”.
Image: People take photos of the grave of late Pope Francis inside St. Mary Major Basilica. Pic: AP/Andrew Medichini
Image: A single white rose left on the tomb. Pic: Vatican
And under the sun outside Santa Maria Maggiore, they are awaiting the opportunity to visit his tomb.
Francis, says Irena, “was like a rainbow” who lit up the world. Anna nods along: “We are so happy to be here.”
The Pope’s tomb has become a new source of pilgrimage.
More than 30,000 people came to view it during the first morning after the Pope’s funeral, the queue snaking from the front of the mighty basilica and then up and down across the square at the back.
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Some were curious visitors, others were devout followers – priests and nuns mixing in the queue with tourists and devoted locals.
All of these admired Francis; a very few actually knew him.
Father Alessandro Masseroni is a deacon who came to Rome to train to become a priest. On his phone, he shows me a photo of him and Francis, with the Pope offering words of encouragement.
Image: Father Alessandro Masseroni meeting the Pope
He says: “I had the honour to serve Pope Francis and to talk to him many times and it was a special experience. I understand why he was so loved by all the people – he was simple and direct.
“He was sunny. St Francis was his role model and when I saw the first picture of the Pope’s tomb, the first thing I thought was of the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.
“Pope Francis will leave a legacy – it doesn’t end with his death but will continue.”
Image: People attend the funeral of Pope Francis. Pic: Reuters/Yara Nardi
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0:38
Video shows Pope’s tomb
What are your emotions now, as you wait to visit his tomb, I ask. Father Alessandro pauses and smiles.
“Many emotions of course, but mainly, I think… thankfulness.”
That has been a recurring aspect among so many of the people we have met in Rome over the past week – the sense that sadness for Francis’s death is outweighed by the sense that his was a life that should be celebrated.
Volodymyr Borysyak flew in from London on the morning of the Pope’s funeral to make his third pilgrimage to Rome.
Barely had he arrived than his phone was stolen, a crime he responded to by praying for the thief.
Volodymyr is a refugee from western Ukraine who worries that his home country’s plight is being forgotten by some of the world.
Now, the Pope who inspired him has died.
You might imagine that he would be resentful and angry. Instead, he is full of smiles.
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7:51
The farewell to Pope Francis
“We are happy to be the pilgrims of the world and this is a special day,” he tells me. “I know the pope used to pray in this basilica so that is why we will stay so long here to visit Santa Maria Maggiore.
“I think Pope Francis was, is and will be the pope for the world, because of the mercy of his heart and his love for everybody.”