Category: Press Releases

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 12 April 2023.

Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council briefing on Mali.

Thank you, President. Thank you, SRSG Wane, for your briefing. Let me underscore our appreciation for the hard work and the courage of MINUSMA’s peacekeepers.

Last time the Council met on Mali, we had just received the Secretary-General’s review. This established four parameters against which progress was needed for MINUSMA to remain effective and relevant. There are clear indications in the latest report that progress has not been made. In fact, the trajectory seems to be worsening in several respects.

First, ground and air movement restrictions continue to hinder peacekeepers, with almost a quarter of flight requests rejected by the authorities during the reporting period. This impedes the protection of civilians and places peacekeepers at risk.

Second, there was the expulsion of MINUSMA’s human rights director, following the dangerous criticism directed at the civil society representative who briefed this Council in January. This reflects a worrying disregard for the mission’s mandate. We count on the mission’s continued commitment to investigate and report on human rights. In this regard, we urge the release without further delay of the UN report on the alleged massacre of civilians in Moura by Malian armed forces and Wagner Group personnel in March 2022.

Third, tensions persist between Peace Agreement signatories. The UK, along with wider International Mediation, stand ready to support. We urge the parties to engage with the International Mediation proposals presented last week aimed at relaunching the peace process. While all parties need to show willingness to engage on concrete implementation measures, it is the Malian authorities that ultimately have primary responsibility to implement the Agreement. We urge them to make the first step.

Fourth, the timely transition to constitutional rule by March 2024 remains imperative. Electoral and constitutional reforms should not be allowed to impede this.

President, in June this Council will be faced with some difficult decisions. With few visible signs from the Malian authorities of a commitment to meeting the Secretary-General’s parameters, it cannot be business as usual for MINUSMA’s mandate renewal in June. We should be ready to adapt and refocus the mission, reviewing any support that carries risks to the UN’s credibility and reputation.

Thank you.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 12 April 2023.

New sanctions announced target those who have knowingly assisted sanctioned Russia oligarchs to hide their assets in complex financial networks.

New sanctions announced by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly today (Wednesday 12 April) target those who have knowingly assisted sanctioned Russia oligarchs to hide their assets in complex financial networks.

In the face of unprecedented international sanctions in response to Putin’s illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine – with over £18 billion of Russian and other assets frozen in the UK alone – oligarchs have scrambled to shield their wealth with the help of financial fixers, offshore trusts, shell companies, and even using their family members.

Now UK experts have uncovered their financial networks – tracing those responsible for facilitating the activity and sanctioning them directly with asset freezes, travel bans, transport sanctions, and trust services sanctions. Working in partnership across Whitehall, the FCDO, HMRC, NCA, OFSI and others such as DfT, are enforcing sanctions and pursuing those who try to undermine them.

Among those sanctioned are Demetris Ioannides and Christodoulos Vassiliades, 2 Cypriot professional enablers supporting major Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov. Ioannides is responsible for crafting the murky offshore structures which Abramovich used to hide over £760 million assets ahead of being sanctioned following Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Vassiliades, a Cypriot lawyer, is at the centre of a web of trusts and offshore companies that link Usmanov and Sutton Place Estate.

The UK has also targeted Usmanov’s financial network, including companies USM, Curzon Square Limited, and Hanley Limited. Sanctioning these companies ensures that assets associated with Usmanov – including the £90 million Beechwood House mansion in London – remain sanctioned. Curzon Square Limited, the outfit that acted as Usmanov’s London office and as leaseholder of a Grade II mansion on Curzon Square, is also subject to an asset freeze. Vladimir and Varvara Skoch, the father and daughter of Usmanov’s business partner and ”richest man in the Duma” Andrei Skoch, have also been sanctioned.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said:

We are closing the net on the Russian elite and those who try to help them hide their money for war.

There’s no place to hide. We will keep cutting them off from assets they thought were successfully hidden.

Together with our international partners the UK will continue to crack down on those who are supporting the war.

We won’t stop until Putin does.

Today’s package hits a number of family members of other oligarchs, who are used as proxies to hide their assets. This includes:

• Tatiana Evtushenkova, the acting director of firm Redline Capital which is owned by her father, Vladimir Evtushenkov
• Natalia Evtushenkov, wife of Vladimir Evtushenkov who holds board positions in banks and other companies in which her husband owns stakes including MTS Bank. She is also on the board of directors for Telecomms company Instacom International, which is owned by her husband
• Felix Evtushenkov, whose father Vladimir transferred 10% of shares in Russian conglomerate Sistema to Felix at the time of his own designation, bringing Vladimir’s stake to below 50%
• Gulnara Kerimova, who holds four luxury villas in France on behalf of her father Suleyman Kerimov
• Nariman Gadzhiev, who acts as the beneficiary owner of a series of shell companies connected to Kerimov. A company linked to Gadzhiev was found to be transferring hundreds of millions of dollars to companies linked to his uncle Kerimov
• Oksana Marchenko, the wife of key Putin ally Victor Medvedchuk, and owner of multiple luxury properties in Crimea

Today’s package comes as part of the UK’s crackdown on all forms of evasion and circumvention – including an additional £50 million announced as part of the new Economic Deterrence Initiative to support sanctions enforcement and continued work with international partners.

The Home Secretary also recently announced the expansion of the National Crime Agency’s Combating Kleptocracy Cell to target corrupt elites and their enablers.

The UK, alongside international partners, is also continuing to strengthen the unprecedented sanctions imposed to constrain Russia’s capacity to wage its illegal war – including through the new enforcement co-ordination mechanism to bolster the compliance and enforcement of our measures.

By implementing these measures, the UK is ensuring – consistent with its legal systems – that Putin and those who continue to support his war have no access to any of these assets until they end their violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 12 April 2023.

Ambassador Bush says the arrival of Spring is overshadowed for a second year by Russia’s destructive and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, I would like to thank Ms Herasymchuck for her statement. Madam Chair, since we last met in this Council, millions across the OSCE region have welcomed the arrival of Spring; celebrating new life, rebirth and community. While we may look ahead to warmer, brighter days, for many Ukrainians the upcoming Easter celebrations will be overshadowed for a second year by Russia’s destructive and unprovoked invasion.

Thousands of Ukrainian families will be missing loved ones from their tables and family gatherings in the coming days: those killed by Russian invaders; those serving to defend Ukraine; unlawfully detained persons and all those forced from their homes. This Easter, according to the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, over 6,000 Ukrainian children will be in Russia’s custody, without their parents – some as far as 4,000 miles from their homes. We await the Moscow Mechanism report on this latest cruelty from Russia.

This devastation also includes families grieving in Russia. Thousands of Russian soldiers have senselessly lost their lives in Ukraine – many of them recruited from minority communities, in Russia’s poorest regions. Poorly trained, ill equipped and with non-existent leadership, these men – young and old – were led to their deaths by Moscow’s lies and propaganda. The Russian leadership has shown a complete disregard for the lives of its citizens – to fight a war that many do not understand or believe in.

Spring also marks a busy time for agricultural producers across the OSCE region. However, in Ukraine, the simple act of tending to the land could result in serious injury or death. More than 5 million hectares of Ukraine’s farmland has been damaged in the war – an area larger than Slovakia. Vast areas will need to be cleared of mines and unexploded ordnance and re-cultivated. Russian forces stole or destroyed agricultural equipment and left seed and crops to rot, while bombs, bullets, starvation and disease killed hundreds of thousands of animals and millions of poultry birds. We continue to see the impact of Russia’s actions on world food prices and on the most food-insecure communities around the globe.

Every day, ordinary Ukrainians live under the constant threat of attack while trying to go on with their lives. This weekend residential areas, including in Kramatorsk and Kupiansk, were the target of Russian shelling and rocket attacks, which claimed more innocent lives including a little 11-year-old girl and her father. Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia Oblast on Sunday resulted in a further three deaths. The relentless loss of life and devastation caused by Russia’s aggression since February 2022 is incomprehensible.

We will remember each one of these lives taken. We will not forget the names of the children separated from their parents. We will honour those who have given their lives and livelihoods in the defence of their country. Time and again, we have called on Russia to end this war, to end the suffering to Ukraine, to its own people and to all affected around the world. However, it is clear Russia’s political leadership does not want peace.

Madam Chair, there is hope. The Ukrainian people have demonstrated repeatedly that they will not give up their right to freedom and a democratic future; they will not bow in the face of Russian aggression. And Ukraine’s friends will not give up either. As evidenced by the wide-ranging diplomatic, economic, military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine by its partners, Russia should not harbour any illusions that this support will diminish. It will not. Ukraine will have peace; a just and lasting peace on Ukraine’s terms; a peace that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity; and a peace that restores the stability and security of Europe and the wider global community. And we will be standing by them.