Oligarch ditches UK mansions after government sanctions delay

Responding to reports that Russian* oligarch Alisher Usmanov was able to offload his UK properties before UK sanctions came into effect, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Layla Moran MP said: “The Conservative Government’s dither and delay on sanctions has meant that Putin’s cronies have once again gotten away with it. It took Ministers weeks to put the proper sanctions into place - meanwhile, it looks like oligarchs were fire-selling their assets all that time.  “Where oligarchs have transferred their holdings to their families, those relatives must be immediately sanctioned. Putin’s cronies’ properties and assets in the UK should now be seized - funding an oligarch tax to help people with spiralling energy bills.” *Usmanov is an Uzbek by birth and upbringing, but his interests and those of his wife are closely bound up with Putin's Kremlin