Squatters took over Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska’s London house on Monday — unfurling a Ukrainian flag and a banner claiming they’d “liberated” the $65 million mansion.
Police confirmed they have been known as within the early hours to squatters getting into the mansion owned by Deripaska, who was placed on Britain’s sanctions listing final week over his ties to warmongering Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“This property has been liberated,” a major banner over the doorway reads — whereas one other mentioned, “Putin go f–ok your self.”
It was not instantly clear who known as the police, nor if anybody was house on the time of the protest that was later claimed by self-confessed anarchists group Resist London.
“Russian oligarchs: You occupy Ukraine, we occupy you,” the group mentioned in a press release.
The group accused the billionaire of being “complicit in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
“By occupying this mansion, we wish to present solidarity with the folks of Ukraine, but additionally the folks of Russia who by no means agreed to this insanity,” the group mentioned, whereas accusing the billionaire of being “complicit in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The assertion ended with the suggestion to “squat oligarchs’ properties in every single place.”
The motion got here as protesters additionally descended on a $5.75 million London residence believed to be house to Polina Kovaleva, the 26-year-old stepdaughter of Russian international minister Sergey Lavrov, The Solar mentioned.
British politicians have additionally known as for Kovaleva to be added to the sanctions listing together with Deripaska and round 20 others.
As The Put up beforehand revealed, Deripaska — who's estimated to be value $4.1 billion — can be barred from getting into the US and is needed for homicide, cash laundering, bribery and racketeering.
He has purchased not less than two Manhattan mansions — in Greenwich Village and the Higher East Aspect — however possession has been transferred to his family.
Final yr, the FBI swarmed the $4.5 million Village townhouse on Homosexual Road in addition to a 23,000-square foot one in Washington, DC. The company solely mentioned it was conducting “regulation enforcement exercise on the house.”
His five-story Higher East Aspect mansion on East sixty fourth Road — which he purchased for $42.5 million in 2008 — was frozen by the US Division of the Treasury as a part of Deripaska’s property within the US in 2018.
He sued the Division of the Treasury over the sanctions, however a choose threw out his lawsuit. Deripaska has appealed the ruling.
Britain froze his property final Thursday, saying he's intently related to Putin and his at-war authorities.
London Excessive Court docket paperwork from 2007 recognized Deripaska because the helpful proprietor of the Belgrave Sq. mansion. A choose in a courtroom case the yr earlier than mentioned the property and one other home he owned exterior the capital, have been then value about $52 million.
Representatives of Deripaska didn't instantly reply to a request for remark.
In his final tweet, on Saturday, he mentioned, “I stay dedicated to my perception that an instantaneous ceasefire and peace settlement as quickly as humanly doable is the most effective and solely answer to cease this insanity in Ukraine.”
With Put up wires
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