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The UK can sanction Russian luxury property. But will it?

As tension heightens over Ukraine, experts say targeting the Russian elite’s UK property would be difficult – and could be a ‘nuclear option’

By Thomas Rowley
The UK can sanction Russian luxury property. But will it?
One expert called sanctioning Russian property “a nuclear option for the City of London”
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A luxury mansion in leafy Surrey owned by a pro-Kremlin oligarch. A central London penthouse property controlled by a former Russian public official.

These are among the high-value, Kremlin-linked UK properties that the British government could target with its new Russian sanctions legislation – if it wishes to do so.

Russian businesspeople and officials accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin own at least 150 properties worth £1.5bn, according to Transparency International. If those individuals were sanctioned, the economic use of their assets, including property, would be frozen. Sanctioned individuals would not be able to sell, rent or remortgage their property to free up capital.

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