UK sanctions number of Russian businesspeople - British govt

MOSCOW. Nov 2 (Interfax) - The United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on four Russian businesspeople, namely Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, founders of Evraz Group, Albert Shigabutdinov, CEO of Tatarstan's petrochemical company TAIF, and Airat Shaimiev, CEO of road-building Tatavtodor and son of the first president of Tatarstan.

The four men's assets are subject to freezing, and they are banned from entering UK territory, the UK government said.

The move is intended to ramp up economic pressure on Russia, it said.

The UK put Abramov's and Frolov's partner in investments in Evraz, Roman Abramovich, on its sanction list back in March 2022. Since then, it has also sanctioned several other businesspeople historically linked to Abramovich, among them Eugene Shvidler, David Davidovich, and Eugene Tenenbaum, as well as Evraz itself.

Abramov and Frolov have property investments in the UK worth an estimated 100 million British pounds, it said.

The UK has imposed blocking sanctions on over 120 major Russian businesspeople, whose aggregate worth is over 140 billion British pounds.

Along with the updating of the sanctions list, the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has issued a general license valid until the end of January 2023 to the telecom operator Truphone, where Abramov and his partners have invested.