Britain will hit five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals with sanctions, Boris Johnson announced under a “first barrage” of punitive measures ahead of a feared full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Prime Minister described on Tuesday the troops being sent by Vladimir Putin into the Donbas region under the guise of being “peacekeepers” as a “renewed invasion” of Ukraine.
He said the Russian President is “establishing the pretext for a full-scale offensive” as he warned this could include the capture of the capitol Kyiv by the nearly 200,000 troops amassed on Ukraine’s borders.
Mr Johnson told the Commons immediate sanctions would be deployed against the Russian banks Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank, as well as three “very high net wealth individuals”.
Mr Johnson named the individuals as Gennady Temchencko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg.
Boris Rotenberg is a Russian businessman with personal ties to Vladimir Putin. Rotenberg is a major shareholder and director of SMP Bank.
Rotenberg is involved in supporting the government of Russia by owning or controlling SMP Bank, which is a Russian Government affiliated-entity which obtains financial benefit from the Government of Russia and is carrying out business in the finance sector which is a sector of strategic significance to the Government of Russia.
Igor Rotenberg a prominent Russian businessmen with close familial ties to President Putin. Rotenberg is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of National Telematic Systems (NTS).
NTS is conducting business in the transport sector, which is of strategic significance to the Government of Russia, and therefore through his role as Chairman of the Board of Directors to NTS, Igor Rotenberg is benefiting from or supporting the Government of Russia.
Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko is a major shareholder in Bank Rossiya. Bank Rossiya is a key stakeholder in the National Media Group which supports Russian policy which is destabilising Ukraine
“Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen, the individuals concerned will be banned from travelling here and we will prohibit all UK individuals and entities from having any dealings with them,” Mr Johnnson told MPs.
“This the first tranche, the first barrage, of what we are prepared to do and we hold further sanctions at readiness to be deployed.”
Rossiya Bank is a Russian joint stock bank founded on June 27, 1990. The company's headquarters are in Saint Petersburg.
On March 20, 2014, the United States Government Office of Foreign Assets Control added Rossiya Bank to the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) as part of sanctions taken in response to the 2014 Crimean crisis, placing restrictions on US trade with the bank. Visa and Mastercard stopped processing the bank's payment as a result.
In response Vladimir Putin announced that he would open a ruble-only account with Bank Rossiya and would make it the primary bank in the newly annexed Crimea as well as giving the right to service payments on Russia's $36 billion wholesale electricity market – which gave the bank $112 million annually from commission charges alone. Bank Rossiya also announced plans to expand into the Crimean market, becoming the first major Russian bank to do so.
As of January 2019, Rossiya Bank has become the most important investor in Russia's development of its annexation of Crimea during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.
IS Bank in Russia has been operating since 1994. It is connected to Turkey's largest private bank IS Bank in Turkey, established in 1924 at the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey.
As of September 30, 2018, Isbank had total assets of TL 444.3 million. Isbank is the largest Turkish bank in terms of total loans, shareholders’ equity and total assets. Furthermore, Isbank ranks first among private sector banks in terms of FX, demand deposit.
Promsvyazbank is a state-backed, formerly private Russian bank from Moscow. It was owned by the oligarchs Dmitry and Aleksey Ananyev. As of 2012, it is the 10th largest bank in Russia by assets.
The bank was established in May 1995 by the Ananyev brothers, the owners of Tekhnoserv, the largest systems integrator in the CIS. Its first customers were major telecom companies such as Rostelecom. Between 2006 and 2012, a 15,32% stake was owned by Commerzbank. In February 2010, an 11,75% stake was acquired by the EBRD.
As of February 2016, the bank provides services to more than 100,000 corporate and over 2 million private customers.
