Oligarch sanctions are essentially a good idea but authorities didn’t think through what might happen next, a financial crime and security specialist has said.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Tom Keatinge, the director of financial crimes and security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, discussed the ongoing situation.
Keatinge said he thought oligarch sanctions were helpful “because they put the whole issue of sanctions in the public eye.”
Taking the example of sanctions imposed on Roman Abramovich and the effect it’s had on the sale of Chelsea Football Club, he said it was helpful from a PR perspective, but “it doesn’t seem to me this is going to change Vladimir Putin’s calculus.”
When asked if the sanctions affected Putin, he said: “I don’t believe that at all.”
Abramovich has been one of the individuals sanctioned by the EU and the UK but remained off the US sanctions listafter Ukraine asked for him to be kept off …