Chelsea FC, owned by Roman Abramovich, is among the prized assets of seven Russian oligarchs frozen by the British government. (Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
"Today's sanctions show once again that oligarchs and kleptocrats have no place in our economy or society," Truss said. "With their close links to Putin, they are complicit in his aggression."
Abramovich's net worth of $12.4 billion, jetset lifestyle and ownership of Premier League Chelsea has given him celebrity status in London. The government's sanctions order now blocks his recent efforts to sell one of Britain's most celebrated soccer clubs, which Forbes last year valued at $3.2 billion.
The government said that it will allow Chelsea to continue with some "football-related activities," such as playing matches through a special license.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries tweeted on Thursday that the license "will allow fixtures to be fulfilled, staff to be paid and existing ticket holders to attend matches while, crucially, depriving Abramovich of benefiting from his ownership of the club."
Abramovich also owns the venture capital firm Millhouse Capital LLC and a majority stake in London-based Evraz Group SA, a publicly-traded steelmaker and mining company with worldwide operations.
The sanctions will also apply to leading industrialist Oleg Deripaska, who has stakes in Anglo-Russian energy and metals company EN+ Group, and Igor Sechin, chief executive of Russian oil giant Rosneft.
The other four oligarchs that have been sanctioned are the chairman of VTB Bank, Andrey Kostin; Alexei Miller, chief executive of energy company Gazprom; Nikolai Tokarev, president of the Russian state-owned pipeline company Transneft; and the chairman of the board of directors of Bank Rossiya, Dmitri Lebedev.
The seven join the list of more than 200 Russian citizens, banks and companies already sanctioned by Britain as it seeks to cut off Russian financial institutions from funding sources in Western financial markets. The measures include a full asset freeze on VTB Bank, whose U.K. subsidiary has been dropped from London stock exchange listings.
The British sanctions also ban Russian state and private companies from raising funds in the country through securities and loans. They also limit the amount of money that Russian nationals will be able to deposit in U.K. bank accounts.
And Britain has pushed through an Economic Crime Bill, which is due to come into force next week. Once ratified, the law will force anonymous foreign owners of property in Britain to reveal their real identities, overhaul prosecutors' powers to fight the movement of illicit finance and add teeth to the country's sanctions watchdog.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has been under pressure to crack down on Abramovich and other high-profile Russian business tycoons through sanctions since Russian invaded Ukraine, its European neighbor.
"There can be no safe havens for those who have supported Putin's invasion," Johnson said on Thursday. "Today's sanctions are the latest step in our ruthless pursuit of those who enable the killing of civilians, destruction of hospitals and illegal occupation of Ukraine."
--Additional reporting by Richard Crump and Zachary Zagger. Editing by Ed Harris.
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