LONDON, March 7. /TASS/. A proposal by London Mayor Sadiq Khan to confiscate the property of Russian businessmen and use the seized assets to aid Ukrainian refugees is illegitimate and driven by the upcoming London mayoral election scheduled for May 2, Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin told TASS.
"This is a deeply opportunistic, agenda-driven and illegitimate proposal. Khan must soon stand in London’s mayoral election. Moreover, he has recently been in the thick of the latest upheavals connected with the Muslim movement," he said.
"Obviously his proposal is illegitimate. Confiscation is only possible by court order, with a proper verdict handed down for the respective crimes committed. There are neither such verdicts nor court orders nor crimes by the sound of things. All motivations pertaining to sanctions are usually farfetched, of an entirely fuzzyheaded nature and are announced by decision of Foreign Minister [David Cameron]. The rationale is most often either non-existent or completely senseless," the diplomat added.
The LBC radio station reported at the end of February, citing a letter from Mayor Khan to UK Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations Michael Gove, that Khan had proposed that sanctioned properties owned by Russian businessmen valued at 1.1 bln pounds sterling ($1.4 bln) be confiscated for their subsequent sale with the proceeds being allocated toward funding the construction of 4,000 houses, including for refugees from Ukraine.
Speaking about the latest anti-Russia sanctions imposed by the UK at the end of February, Kelin said that London has nearly exhausted all of its potential in this area. "The latest sanctions package especially demonstrates the farfetched nature of such restrictions. The potential itself that the UK had in this respect is nearly used up. Sanctions are mainly secondary in nature now, meaning they are targeted at enterprises that can circumvent restrictions imposed earlier," the Russian ambassador said.
"The effect from it is minor. The question is also whether this potential existed at all," he said, noting that "there were more British sanctions announced than have been imposed by the EU." However, restrictions only "thwarted bilateral trade relations," although they "did not lead to [the achievement of the] announced objectives," meaning the undermining of the Russian economy and forcing a change in Russia’s foreign politicy, the diplomat stressed. "Even local experts admit that sanctions do not work," he added.
On February 22, the UK expanded its list of anti-Russian sanctions by adding several new targets, including two companies operating in the diamond sector and Alrosa CEO Pavel Marinychev, as well as enterprises engaged in the production of ammunition, metals companies, firms involved in oil sales and transportation, and the management of Novatek and the company’s Arctic LNG-2 project.