A Russian billionaire named in EU sanctions “as one of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs” stepped down on Tuesday as a trustee of the Royal Academy, which has also returned a donation he made towards a Francis Bacon exhibition.
The RA – which had had been among UK cultural institutions and bodies facing calls to sever ties with Russian oligarchs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – said that the billionaire banker Petr Aven would be stepping down with immediate effect.
Aven, the head of Russia’s largest commercial bank and a member Russia’s business elite, was pictured at the Kremlin listening to Putin discuss how to cope with western sanctions. In Britain, where he has resided, Aven is an avid art collector and donor to British cultural institutions including Tate and the Royal Academy. The honorary president of the Royal Academy Trust, on which Aven sat, is the Prince of Wales.
He and his business partner, the London-based businessman Mikhail Fridman, responded to the EU sanctions by describing them as “spurious and unfounded”.
Aven took issue with how he was described in the EU sanctions notice, rejecting the claims that he had benefited from government connections and that he and Fridman were “unofficial emissaries for the Russian government”.
Asked about Aven’s position at the RA, a spokesperson said: “Petr Aven has stepped down as a trustee of the Royal Academy Trust with immediate effect and the Royal Academy has returned his donation towards the Francis Bacon: Man and Beast exhibition.”
Masha Batsii, a Ukrainian artist based in London, said of Aven’s role at the RA: “It is absolutely inappropriate for any art institution to associate with a Russian oligarch, no matter their background. There’s no art in the face of death and human suffering – and I strongly believe that we need to unite all our strength and resources to target Putin’s autocracy and to weaken it – oligarchs being an important part of Putin’s strength.”
Tate is also facing pressure to sever its ties to another Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch who has already been the target of US sanctions since 2018.
Viktor Vekselberg, the founder of a Russian energy conglomerate and an associate of Vladimir Putin, is an honorary member of the prestigious Tate Foundation in recognition of past donations, the gallery has confirmed.
Chris Bryant, the Labour MP chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, told the Guardian : “We need to use every single sanction available to us: financial, cultural and sporting. We can’t be the generation that stood by while naked aggression stalked Europe.
“Of course Putin supporters should be removed from our cultural institutions and galleries and museums should run a mile from blood-drenched Russian money.”
A Tate spokesperson said there are no UK sanctions on any of Tate’s supporters.
As well as targeting Fridman and Aven, another oligarch with British ties who was caught up in the latest EU sanctions is Alisher Usmanov, an Uzbek-born billionaire whose holding company, USM, own the naming rights to Everton football club’s Finch Farm training ground.
“Alisher Usmanov has already been sanctioned by the EU, but not yet by the UK. But I suspect he’ll be pretty soon on a UK list and Everton should soon be cutting ties with him,” Bryant told MPs during a debate on sanctions in parliament.
Usmanov has responded to EU sanctions a statement: “I believe that such a decision is unfair, and the reasons employed to justify the sanctions are a set of false and defamatory allegations damaging my honour, dignity and business reputation.”
• This article was amended on 2 March 2022. The Prince of Wales is the honorary president of the Royal Academy Trust, not the president of the Royal Academy as an earlier version said. The latter post is held by Rebecca Salter.
