The Rocky Mountain mansion owned by Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch targeted by the Western sanctions, could be among the first assets frozen by the U.S. government under the U.S. KleptoCapture initiative. The 14,000-square-foot modern mega-home on 200 acres in Snowmass, Colorado, is just outside the glamorous Aspen.
The EU added Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich to an asset freeze and travel ban list. Alfa Group shareholders German Khan and Alexey Kuzmichev have also been placed under sanctions. Tigran Khudaverdyan, executive director of Yandex, one of Russia’s leading tech companies, is also blacklisted for being one of the business people with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As Russia’s tanks rolled into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin gathered the country’s top businessmen in the Kremlin’s ornate Hall of the Order of St Catherine to discuss their response to sanctions. The Russian president seated about 20ft away in a conspicuous social-distancing measure. Putin told them he would have no other choice but to invade Ukraine and if they wanted to keep their businesses, neither did they.
The Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is the owner of Chelsea, a UK Premier League football club. He has invested more than £1B into the Stamford Bridge club since purchasing it in 2003. Abramovich will not be asking the club to repay the loans it owes him. Thus, the long-term future of the club remains secure. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich has handed "stewardship and care" of Chelsea to the club's charitable foundation following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.