How Putin’s pals had to get rid of their £70m jets after 2014 sanctions – as they’re hit with MORE penalties
TWO of Putin’s cronies targeted with sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine had to ditch their private jets when they were hit with similar penalties in 2014.
Tough sanctions imposed by the US and other Western countries made it impossible for some of Russia’s wealthiest individuals to keep hold of their luxury jets.
The latest sanctions were imposed after President Putin gave the green light for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has braced for all-out conflict and mobilized military reservists ahead of declaring a 30-day state of emergency.
In a move described by UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace as "full tonto", Putin sent Russian forces into Ukraine after officially recognising the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk and the People's Republic of Luhansk, both parts of Eastern Ukraine.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the flagrant act of aggression could not be seen to succeed as Mr Putin had “completely torn up international law”.
On Tuesday, he announced UK sanctions against three high-net-worth individuals connected with the Russian president.
Gennady Timchenko, a long-time chum of Putin, has been targeted in the latest round of sanctions for being a “major shareholder” in Rossiya Bank, which “supports Russian policy which is destabilising Ukraine”, according to the British sanctions list.
He was also one of the oligarchs to feel the pinch in 2014.
Despite having an estimated net worth of £15billion, plane records show that Timchenko was forced to give up his £40million Gulfstream G650 jet after Russia invaded Ukraine the first time.
In an interview in 2014, reports that Timchenko said U.S.-based Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation had stopped servicing his plane.
"My Gulfstream cannot be used because the company won't supply it with spare parts, and the pilots don't have the right to use the navigation, the built-in maps," the Billionaire told Russia's state-owned TASS news agency at the time.
The oligarch also owns 130ft yacht called M/S Lena, named after Timchenko’s wife, estimated to be worth £30million.
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His wife, Elena, was also the manager of a high-end hotel, Le Club de Cavaliere, in the south of France.
It is unclear if – like in 2014 – Timchenko will have to forgo any of the trappings of luxury life after the latest round of sanctions.
But his loyalty to Putin, who claims to have played no part in Timchenko’s success, shows no signs of wavering.
In response to the recent sanctions, Timchenko told a Russian news agency: “You have to pay for everything in your life, even for your friendship with the president.”
Billionare brothers Arkady, worth an estimated £2.5 billion, and Boris Rotenberg, thought to be worth £900 million, also had to surrender their birds as the price of being pally with Putin.
Arkady's son, Igor, thought to be worth £800 million, was named in the recent sanction list, along with his uncle Boris.
The Rotenberg brothers are childhood friends of Putin, and reportedly still train judo with the machismo president.
Arkady even claimed that he was the owner of a 190,000sq-ft mega-mansion – thought to be owned by Putin – on a sprawling estate by the Black Sea.
The brothers sold two luxury jets worth a combined worth of $40m – Boris’ worth $25 million and Arkady's $15 million – after Credit Suisse stopped accepting their payments in response to US sanctions in 2014.
To get around embargos on financing and procuring new parts, Beam air portal founder Dmitry Semenikhin said that “some businessmen will rent planes so as not to fall under the restrictions".
A seemingly small price to pay for the family's ownership of a number of businesses that are of “strategic significance” to the Kremlin, according to the sanctions list.
As Arkady Rotenberg was not mentioned in the latest sanctions, his yacht, which was worth an estimated $75m and cost $4-8m per year to run in 2011, according to , is unlikely to be at risk.
Eight years on from the 2014 sanctions, the oligarchs are better prepared to sidestep them.
Timchenko has been transferring wealth to his daughters Natalia and Xenia and their associates since 2014, according to .
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Boris’s son, Roman, owns a £3.3 million townhouse in Belgravia through a firm based in Cyprus and acquired British citizenship in 2014.
He has been unnaffected by the sanctions and there is no charge of wrongdoing.
