Alexader Lebedev, too, ends up among the sanctioned. The squeeze against the publishing oligarch comes – as reported by The Guardina – from Canada. The Russian-born billionaire and owner of a publishing group is, in fact, one of 13 people included in the latest sanctions announced by Canada on Friday, including oligarchs with ties to the Russian president’s regime and their family.
Lebedev, a former KGB agent, together with his son is the main shareholder of Evening Standard and Independent and is also one of the financiers of Novaya Gazeta, the main Russian opposition newspaper (which for weeks has been forced to stop publishing ).
The sanctions package, which covers assets worth $ 75.7 million in 2021, (and nearly £ 47 million), includes a ban on some luxury goods from Russia, including caviar, diamonds and vodka. Canada is also banning products that could be used in Russia’s arms production and manufacture. Lebedev’s son Evgeny Lebedev is friends with the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. According to the Globe and Mail, others sanctioned include Gleb Frank, owner of one of Russia’s largest fishing companies, and son of Sergei Frank, former transport minister and former CEO of Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company. Lebedev, former lieutenant colonel of the KGB in London, then banker and entrepreneur, has bought two properties in Umbria since 2008, Palazzo Terranova and Castello di Procopio, in one of which Boris Johnson was a guest, in parties where he may have been subject of dossieraggio and kompromat by the Russians. His son Evgeny, a London socialite, is senior executive director of the Evening Standard. Lebedev’s political career was not as successful as his working life: a member of the Russian parliament until 2007, he then tried to launch a new social democratic party with Mikhael Gorbachev, but the effort failed. Lebedev financially supports the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation which built a free cancer hospital for children in St. Petersburg.