March 6th, 2022.
The events in Ukraine have caused the UK to examine its relationships with Russian Oligarchs. In part, this is only because investigative journalism still exists in the UK and daylight is being shone on the Oligarchs.
Roman Abramovich is attempting to divest himself of the ownership of Chelsea FC and his many UK properties. Alisher Usmanov has commercial ties with Everton FC, and these have been severed. He is co-owner of Megafon, Russia’s second-largest mobile phone operator amongst other major industries, including businesses in Australia. He is an Uzbekistani Muslim, but has a Jewish wife. His wife, an ex-gymnastics coach was close to Putin, having introduced him to Alina Kabaeva. Putin is rumoured to be very close to Alina.
According to the historian Yuri Slezkine who wrote in The Jewish Century, six of the seven top oligarchs of 1990s Russia (Petr Aven, Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Alexander Smolensky) were ethnic Jews. This pattern has been continued to the present day.
The purpose of identifying them as Jewish is not to demonise a stereotype but will explain some of the geopolitical links that I will mention later.
Many of these followed Abramovich in donating millions of dollars to Jewish charities and have strong links to Israel. Abramovich developed strong links with Putin which he maintained after moving to the UK. During his rise, Abramovich became close to Berezovsky until some deals came apart. In 2008, Berezovsky sued his former protege over his confiscated Sibneft shares; then, in 2012, seven months after a judge rejected all of his claims, Berezovsky died in his London home in an apparent suicide. Some former associates believe he might have been murdered and the coroner recorded an open verdict.
In 2017, BuzzFeed reported that US spy agencies suspected Russian involvement in as many as 14 mysterious deaths in Britain over the previous decade, including Berezovsky’s.
Whatever the circumstances, the Oligarchs began strengthening their asset holdings in the UK whilst maintaining their substantial business interests in Russia by keeping close to Putin and not upsetting the status quo in Russia or “meddling” in politics.
Many of these Oligarchs have highly professional personal security arrangements in the UK, often carried out by ex-special forces personnel from the IDF and, on some occasions, retired Mossad operatives.
As previously mentioned, this is where the situation goes into the realms of geopolitics.
For years, Israel has flirted with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, cultivating very close relations while maintaining its strategic alliance with its most important benefactor: the United States.
Now Israel finds itself squeezed between contradictory global interests and attitudes, hesitating to make a clear choice.
In a last attempt to avoid coming down one way or another, as the vast majority of world opinion rallies behind the Ukrainian cause, Israel has tried to depict itself as an honest broker between Moscow and Kyiv, claiming that it has special interests and unique needs. Who doesn’t?
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called both his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin. But it was a charade. Bennet knew very well that there was no need for him to be the go-between since Putin is not interested in any reasonable solution to end the war. Only Ukraine’s full surrender will satisfy him.
The Israeli military-security and diplomatic establishment is scared that if the country joins the world in condemning Russian aggression and follows the West in imposing sanctions on Russia’s companies, banks, and oligarchs, it will bring upon itself Putin’s wrath in Syria and beyond.
Since Russia intervened in Syria in 2015 to save Bashar al-Assad’s government, Moscow has played a double game. On one hand, Putin’s army cooperated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and allied Shia militias to defeat rebel factions and to some extent the Islamic State group.
On the other hand, Russia turned a blind eye to the more than 1,000 Israeli air force strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria. In some cases, as collateral damage, Syrian troops were killed, and their equipment destroyed.
Yet Putin has stopped the Syrian army from using S-300 air defence batteries against Israeli jets, systems that Moscow itself sold to Damascus. Furthermore, Russian forces stationed in Syria are protected by the more advanced S-400s, which have remained dormant as Israeli jets have struck Russia’s partners on the ground.
It is believed these air defence systems, if activated, would significantly reduce Israel’s freedom of action.
Israeli security sources told Middle East Eye that, on a few occasions, Russia even encouraged Israel to strike the Iranians hard when Moscow felt Tehran’s presence and influence in Syria had become too deeply rooted.
Undoubtedly, Putin will be angry if Israel imposes sanctions on Russia. And he may even respond with efforts to limit Israeli military action in Syria.
But the surprising and unexpectedly slow Russian military onslaught in Ukraine exposes the weakness of Putin and his armed forces. Putin is not omnipotent, as many pundits tended to believe.
Indeed, one can argue that while Israel needs Putin for its continued operations against Iran in Syria, the Russian leader needs Israel too.
Sooner rather than later they must get off the fence. Already the US is showing its impatience with the delaying tactics used by Israel.
Notably, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield expressed her displeasure when Israel refused to be among the sponsors of a draft resolution condemning Russia in the General Assembly.
The US Treasury has also warned Israel not to help Russian oligarchs – many of whom took Israeli nationality as a security policy for rainy days – launder money in Israeli banks, which in the past have practically served as tax havens.
With all the difficulties and juggling, Israel can’t avoid the strategic choice it made decades ago: its chips have always been on the American side of the roulette table.
For most Israelis, and eventually its leaders, the decision to be made between Putin’s rage and Biden’s fury is clear.
Source Yossi Melman, Middle East Eye 2nd March 2022
We can see that the sanctioning of Oligarchs by the EU, UK and USA have far-reaching implications in a geopolitical sense.
The Oligarchs themselves, are in a tricky position.
Whereas in the Yeltsin era, the term Oligarch identified a system dominated by truly independent tycoons, “Putin’s top priority when he came to power was to break that system, replacing it with a system of concentrated power in which men who are inaccurately referred to as oligarchs now have only as much access to wealth as Putin allows them to have.”
Source Jewish Currents, David Klion March 2022.
We are now at the crossroads for the Oligarchs and Israel for different reasons. Whatever the directions they take will have implications beyond Ukraine.