Sanctions: Oligarch Fridman complains about “house arrest” in London 70 million mansion

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Russia sanctions
Oligarch Fridman complains about “house arrest” in London’s 70 million mansion

Mikhail Fridman’s billions are currently frozen

© Pavel Golovkin/ / Picture Alliance

03/29/2022, 3:20 p.m

3 min reading time

Billionaire Mikhail Fridman is critical of the Ukraine war, but ended up on the sanctions list. The London-based oligarch has now reported how he personally suffers from the sanctions and why he thinks they are wrong.

Life has been drastically changed for Russian multi-billionaire Mikhail Fridman as a result of the sanctions imposed on him. The London-based businessman has resigned from the management post of his investment company LetterOne, his accounts are frozen and travel to EU countries is currently not possible.

The equivalent of eleven billion euros that Fridman owns, according to Forbes, doesn’t help him much. “The authorities in the UK have to give me a certain amount so that I can take taxis and buy groceries,” Fridman told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. But that’s a very limited amount when you look at the cost of living in London. “I still don’t know if it’s enough to lead a normal life without excesses. I can’t even take anyone out to a restaurant. I have to eat at home and I’m practically under house arrest.” A few days ago, Fridman told the Bloomberg agency that he could probably spend a maximum of £2,500 (around €3,000) a month.

Victorian villa in London

After all, it’s a pretty golden cage that Fridman is currently stuck in. In 2016, Fridman purchased Athlone House, a stately Victorian property in north London, for his family. He is said to have paid 65 million pounds for it (according to the current conversion rate 77 million euros). He does not yet know whether he will be able to keep the painstakingly restored family home, said Fridman, according to “El Pais”. “It is unclear whether I can continue to live in London or if I will be forced to leave, which I currently cannot and, for many reasons, do not want to.”

Fridman comes from a Jewish family, was born and raised in Lviv, Ukraine, before moving to Moscow to pursue an entrepreneurial career. With the Alfa Group, he built up one of the largest private industrial and financial groups in Russia in the 1990s. To this day, he is in charge of the fortunes of the group, which also includes one of Russia’s largest private banks, Alfa-Bank. In 2013 he also founded the investment company LetterOne, which is officially based in Luxembourg.

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After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Fridman became the first known oligarch to be at least cautiously critical of the war. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards he ended up on the sanctions lists of the EU and Great Britain. According to the EU, the 57-year-old is “one of the most important Russian financiers and supporters of Putin’s inner circle.” His eldest daughter Maria even managed a charity project for Alfa-Bank, and in return Putin politically supported the bank’s investment plans abroad. The British government lists him as a pro-Kremlin oligarch on its sanctions list.

Fridman criticizes sanctions

Fridman, on the other hand, like his longtime business partner Pyotr Aven, has repeatedly denied any political affiliation with the Kremlin. Both see themselves wrongly sanctioned and want to take action against it. “There is no oligarch club. We are all different people,” Fridman told El Pais. “We were only focused on business and never wanted to get close to power.” It was all about having a constructive relationship with the authorities, he says of his enormous economic success, which would probably not have been possible without the goodwill of the Kremlin.

Fridman says it’s “idiotic” to think the oligarchs can pressure Putin to end the war. The sanctions against individual entrepreneurs would only mean that they would be forced to return to Russia for lack of alternatives. “Things won’t get any better for the West if it forces a lot of brilliant and interesting entrepreneurs to go to Russia instead of integrating them more and trying to get them to take a stand, even if it’s obvious that the private sector has no influence on Putin.”

Fridman himself hasn’t lived in Russia for a long time, as he notes bitterly. “I’ve been in London for eight years, I’ve invested billions of dollars in the UK and other European countries and the reaction to that is they take everything away from me and throw me out.”

Swell: El País / Bloomberg / forbes / Guardians / EU sanctions list / UK Sanctions List

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