Reported by Max Colchester

Over a year ago the West launched a new foreign-policy weapon to pressure the Kremlin to halt its war in Ukraine: It sanctioned more than a hundred leading Russian businessmen and their families, hoping that they would prod Russian President Vladimir Putin to give up his expansionist plans. 

So far the strategy hasn’t worked. The war still rages and very few Russian billionaires have publicly denounced Putin or sold off their Russian assets. Meanwhile, a handful of deep-pocketed oligarchs are pushing back, intensifying their legal challenges in U.K. and European Union courts in a long-shot attempt to remove restrictions that include travel bans and asset freezes. 

The legal battles will prove a test of whether Russian businessmen can use the West’s attachment to the rule of law to undermine its own foreign-policy aims. It will also lay bare their key criticism of the sanctions; that many of those targeted have no sway over Putin and the sanctions, far from applying pressure on the Russian president, may be pushing disaffected Westernized oligarchs back into his arms. 

Western government officials say that the mass sanctioning should be viewed as part of a wider crackdown on Russia, which includes bans of key exports to the country aimed at crippling its economy, moves that have also had a limited effect. They also argue that Russian business people and politicians shouldn’t be allowed to continue with their normal lives while the Kremlin, whose patronage allowed them to grow rich, presses on with an illegal invasion.

Roman Abramovich’s lawyers recently appeared in a Luxembourg courtroom to appeal European Union sanctions against their Russian client, arguing the designation prevented him from “intervening effectively” as a conduit for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, according to court documents.  

The billionaire former owner of English soccer team Chelsea F.C., also made an argument that several other oligarchs have put before the court; that he is being unfairly targeted for simply being a Russian businessman and that his ties to Putin are overstated. The court will rule in the coming months.

While high-profile oligarchs are pushing back on their sanctions in European courts, so far they haven’t challenged their U.S. sanctions “for the simple reason that they don’t think they are going to win,” says George Voloshin, a sanctions expert at the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists. The Office of Foreign Assets Control has a long record of winning legal challenges brought by sanctioned individuals.

Read full report: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-west-sanctioned-russias-billionaires-now-they-are-fighting-back-836ee65