Boris Johnson approached by anti-Putin campaigner to freeze assets of Russians in UK

A London-based anti-Putin campaigner Andrei Sidelnikov, has urged Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson to freeze the assets of thousands of pro-Putin Russians residing in UK in an attempt to decouple them from engaging with the Russian Federation. Sidelnikov, earlier in March, had sent a letter to the UK PM to cancel diplomatic relations with Russia. Before the war, he had sent a list to PM Johnson that included the names of 99 Russians who supported Russia's President Vladimir Putin and 100 more names have been added to the list since the invasion on February 24. 

Andrei Sidelnikov stated that he told PM Boris Johnson to impound the property and bank accounts of emigrants with unexplained wealth, connections with the Russian embassy in London, ties to pro-Putin oligarchs, and of those involved in organising cultural events linked to the Russian state, as reported by The Guardian. The Opposition activist apprised that he had found a campaign group, 'Speak Up', and they are under the Project 'Revenge', gathering names of Russians who are supporting Putin. 

“From this moment, all the people who supported this criminal regime must answer for this,” said Sidelnikov, who took political asylum in Britain in 2008, after expressing threat to his life if he remained in Russia. “[If we] don’t close such doors for supporters of criminal Putin’s regime then the war will come to our homes,” the Guardian reported.

Andrei Sidelnikov's letter to UK PM Boris Johnson

Sidelnikov, in a letter sent in March, called on the UK PM to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens until stricter immigration checks were put in place, and push North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He demanded tougher legal penalties for British lawyers and financiers who helped corrupt Russian emigrants. “In the future, it must be a criminal offence to have relations with Russians who are supporting the fascist regime.” Although cognisant of the fact that such actions could fuel Russophobia in UK, Sidelnikov added, “The problem is that there are so [many] Russian citizens who supported Putin’s criminal regime. It’s very difficult to find them because it’s thousands, not 10 or 100, or 700. The Russian community is very angry about what I’m saying because so many of them have some links with Putin’s regime.”

​​​​​​Image: AP