List of 25 people: London imposed personal sanctions against Russians for "human rights violations"

Great Britain imposed new personal sanctions against a number of Russian citizens for involvement in human rights violations. The list is published on the website of the British government.

In total, it included 25 Russians, whom the authorities of the United Kingdom consider to be involved in the death in November 2009 in the Moscow detention center “Sailor Silence” by Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. In the list, in particular, is the name of the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin.

Citizens who are on the sanctions list will be denied entry to the UK, and their accounts in British banks will be frozen, if any. The intention to impose sanctions the day before through the Financial Times was reported by British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab. 

“Thanks to this bill, the UK will have new powers to prevent those who are involved in serious abuse and violation of human rights from entering the UK, transferring money through our banks and benefiting from our economy,” the Minister quoted the publication as saying.

Sanctions have also been imposed against a number of Saudi citizens. In their case, the list included persons involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashukji in 2018 at the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul.

“This is a good example of how the UK will act in the world as a force of good, standing up for human rights. “We will not allow those who seek to hurt and destroy the lives of innocent victims to benefit from the advantages that the UK can offer,” said the head of British diplomacy.

The Russian Embassy in London said that Britain’s inclusion in the list of sanctions of representatives of the top leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the UK is outraged.

“Of particular indignation is the inclusion in the sanctions list of representatives of the senior management of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, as well as judges,” TASS reports.

As noted, in Russia, the investigation, the prosecutor's office and the court operate on the basis of independence from the executive branch and are guided exclusively by law.

“The Russian side reserves the right to retaliate in connection with an unfriendly decision by the UK,” the diplomats emphasized.

The Director General of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, in an interview with RT, noted that these actions can be described as a political action of unjustified aggression against Russia.  

“The death of Sergei Magnitsky happened a long time ago and the choice of the main targets against which personal sanctions will be introduced is strange. This situation is reminiscent of an absentee political reprisal, which, according to the initiators, is completely safe. I believe that the measures that Russia will take will be symmetrical, which, of course, the UK will not like, ”said the political scientist.  

Magnitsky case

Recall that in 2008, one of the auditors of the Hermitage Capital investment fund, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested on charges of creating tax evasion schemes for the founder of the fund, US-British businessman William Browder.

From 1995 to 2007, Browder was considered the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. Russian fiscal and investigative authorities subsequently established that the investor did not transfer taxes from the activities of several companies and intentionally contributed to their bankruptcy.

• William Browder at the U.S. Congress
• Gettyimages.ru
• © Drew Angerer

With the help of these companies, the Browdra Foundation transferred money to the Cypriot founders under the guise of dividends, illegally applying preferential tax rates of 5% and 10% instead of the prescribed 15%.

Sergei Magnitsky was arrested on charges of involvement in the creation of these schemes. In 2009, he died in prison from heart failure. Browder himself later stated that Magnitsky allegedly revealed corruption in the Russian elite, and his death is a contracted political assassination.

Subsequently, the founder of Hemritage Capital became the main initiator of the creation of the “Act on the rule of law and accountability named after Sergei Magnitsky,” which is also known as the “Magnitsky Law” adopted by the US Congress in December 2012.

This law provides for the application of sanctions against a number of Russian officials and law enforcement officials, according to Washington, involved in the death of Magnitsky. Similar laws or amendments have been passed by the authorities in the UK, Canada, and the Baltic countries.

In Russia, William Browder was twice convicted in absentia for tax evasion - in 2013 for 9 years in the case of tax evasion in the amount of 522 million rubles and in 2017 for another term of 9 years for deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion of more than 3 billion rubles.

Self interest

It is worth noting that Dominic Raab, when he was a member of parliament in 2012, was the initiator of the Magnitsky amendment in the UK. He told the Financial Times that he maintained contact with Magnitsky’s widow, Natalya, and the Hermitage Capital’s auditor took the matter to heart.

Raab called Magnitsky “Solzhenitsyn of his generation,” who made public the crimes in the country that he loved, the newspaper said.

• British Parliament meeting
• Reuters
• © UK Parliament / Jessica Taylor

In 2019, Raab, in an article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, promised that the UK government would apply Magnitsky’s amendment to the sanctions law after leaving the European Union.

These actions can only be qualified as interference in the internal affairs of Russia, said Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of the Institute of History and Politics of the Moscow State Pedagogical University, in an interview with RT.

“This is another unfriendly act from the UK towards Russia. The history of Magnitsky’s list is far-fetched, it showed an anti-Russian orientation of modern British politics, which is in the wake of the United States and other younger American allies, ”said the political scientist.

This decision of the UK may lead to mirror actions on the part of Russia, Vladimir Shapovalov believes.

Great Britain is always at the forefront of anti-Russian politics, therefore initiatives of this kind are primarily aimed at maintaining a high level of confrontation between the two states, Nikita Danyuk, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts of the RUDN University, recalled in an interview with RT.

“Now the British Foreign Ministry is demonstrating that it will use all kinds of situations that are connected with Russia to further spin up the sanction flywheel, for which compelling reasons are needed. London quite often cannot find these reasons in the present tense, simply because they are absent, therefore they either invent it, as was the case with the Skripals poisoning, or try to get it from the past, ”the expert emphasized.

Vladimir Shapovalov noted that the British authorities decided to recall the Magnistky case right now because of the difficult domestic political situation - the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the economic collapse due to exit from the EU.

The actions necessary to solve these problems can be quite painful and affect the standard of living of every ordinary Briton, the political scientist added.

“The British government is now dealing with completely speculative issues related to the mythical Russian threat, because it is trying to change the agenda, trying to get away from solving problems that it is not able to solve,” said Vladimir Shapovalov.

Nikita Danyuk agrees with this assessment of the situation. In his opinion, in order to shift the focus of public attention from the discussion of internal problems, the British authorities are throwing new sanctions initiatives into the information space.

“Every time the UK has internal or external difficulties, information related to Russia will surely appear, for example, the Skripals case, chemical weapons in Syria, Assad’s support. Today, these postulates are becoming irrelevant, it’s rather difficult to come up with new ones that would sound convincing, so the British Foreign Ministry is now recalling Magnitsky’s case, ”the expert concluded.