U.K. lawmakers expressed frustration Wednesday that funds from the sale of the Chelsea soccer club have not yet gone to support Ukrainian war victims as had been promised nearly two years ago by the former owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Abramovich sold Chelsea in 2022 after being sanctioned by the British government for what it called his enabling of Russia’s “brutal and barbaric invasion” of Ukraine.
He pledged to donate the £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) from the sale to victims of the war. But almost 20 months later, the funds are still frozen in a bank account in an apparent disagreement with the British government over how they should be spent. The stalemate highlights the difficulty for Western governments to use frozen assets for Ukraine — even those that have been pledged by their owner.
“We are all completely baffled and frustrated that it has taken so long,” said Lord Peter Ricketts, chair of the European Affairs Committee in the upper chamber of the U.K. parliament, which produced the report.
“We can’t understand why either Abramovich or the British government didn’t ensure that there was more clarity in the original undertaking which … would avoid arguments about exactly who in Ukraine would get this money,” Ricketts said.
Note: Abramovich wishes to spend a portion of the funds on humanitarian support in russian occupied Ukraine, in violation of current sanctions, holding up the funds.
So he wants to help subsidize Russia rebuilding all the shit they broke in the first place.
Probably the only way you can telegraph “never wanted anything to do with this” to the West.
To avoid the usual accusations I will have to give a preface, that must be longer than the short facts and citations I’m about to give: I do not support Russia. Their invasion is illegal and pointless. I am a neutral pacifist who despises both the invasion and NATO and its disruption of the anti nuclear weapon movement, but I would take the death of every Russian over a situation in which everyone in Eastern Europe is subject to oppressive Russian laws or faced with war if they are not. I would much prefer almost any other way of ending this war that is not a carte blanche to Russia to choose its next target. I am aware that Russia backs separatists in neighbouring countries when they go against their interests.
Just so it’s clear, before this war actual ethnic Russians did exist in the now-occupied areas and they did want separation after Euromaidan and they did get bombed illegally by Ukraine, and Ukraine did in doing so hit civilians and civilian infrastructure. It takes large leaps of logic to call civilian aid in an area at war for 8 long years before the Russian invasion “subsidising Russia”.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/24/ukraine-unguided-rockets-killing-civilians
I’d support the self determination of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine if they were to seek independence via referendum but instead they were infiltrated by Russian forces prior to referendum which in my opinion removes any semblance of legitimacy considering what might happen to you if you give an answer they do not like. The last time a legitimate referendum was held in Donbas and Luhansk both solidly voted for the independence of Ukraine. Even Crimea voted for independence by a thin margin in 1991.
I’m not sure what the relevance of a referendum during the collapse of the Soviet Union is to the reality of the region being severely damaged for nearly a decade now.
It’s more relevant than a referendum performed under active occupation of a foreign invader
That’s… also irrelevant? We’re talking about 8 years previous to that referendum. I’m pretty sure that referendum hadn’t even happened yet when Ambramovich’s assets were seized.
Unmarked Russian forces were operating throughout Eastern Ukraine after Euromaidan. That Buk system that shot down the commercial airliner is a good example.
russian oligarch abramovich holding up seized funds from helping ukraine fight against an invasion? shock, surprise
UK government wont do shit anyway
This is the best summary I could come up with:
U.K. lawmakers expressed frustration Wednesday that funds from the sale of the Chelsea soccer club have not yet gone to support Ukrainian war victims as had been promised nearly two years ago by the former owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
“We are all completely baffled and frustrated that it has taken so long,” said Lord Peter Ricketts, chair of the European Affairs Committee in the upper chamber of the U.K. parliament, which produced the report.
A former chief executive of Unicef UK, Mike Penrose, who was appointed to head the foundation that will control the funds when it is agreed they can be unfrozen, told The Associated Press that use of the money in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine would not be permitted because it would contravene existing sanctions.
“Of the high-profile oligarchs, Abramovich is the one who, over the last two years, has managed to successfully keep a foot in both camps,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Keatinge suggested that Abramovich might shy away from any arrangement in which all of the Chelsea funds are spent in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government — as opposed to humanitarian projects elsewhere — because that might put him in “conflict” with the Kremlin.
In the report Wednesday, the U.K. lawmakers also recommended that the U.K government consider introducing a process for reviewing sanctions on individuals if they meet certain conditions, such as providing support for reconstruction of Ukraine.
The original article contains 838 words, the summary contains 252 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I wonder if part of the reason Western nations are “struggling” to use the funds in Ukraine is that this would reduce the need for Ukraine to accept bilateral aid from them.
