med.
Alexander Ponomarenko, who is on a UK sanctions list, purchased a whole floor at One Hyde Park in 2011, through an offshore company, it is understood.
A second oligarch, now under sanctions, bought an apartment registered through a UK-registered company, for his then teenage son amid inevitable questions over how a 19-year-old could afford a property costing £29 million. The block was developed by Nick Candy, a Conservative Party donor, and his brother Christian.
Mr Ponomarenko, 57, who made his fortune in banking and shipping and is the joint owner of Moscow’s biggest airport, was placed under UK sanctions in March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The asset freeze prevents Mr Ponomarenko visiting the UK and bars any business here from dealing with him.
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le also implying that the Biden-Harris administration was forcing vaccinations as some sort of an evil plot, rather than a life-saving solution to a raging pandemic.
As we wrote recently in The Rolling Insurrection: How Putin is Waging a Covert War Against ... Russia is engaged in active measures against the West to cause chaos and destabilization. In particular, Russia emphasizes cognitive warfare, where the human mind is the battlefield.
“They know that they can't go to war overtly,” said Keir Giles, author of Russia’s War On Everybody. “And that’s where all of these covert, sub-threshold, grey zone, so-called hybrid attacks come in. Because that is how Russia has been reaching out to harm the West. It knows that if it is in open warfare, the result is a foregone conclusion that it will be disastrous for Russia.
“In every single other possible domain of waging war, Russia has already been convinced for a long time that it is in a state of conflict with the West, and it's behaving accordingly. So all of the different levers of power that it can use to attack us, it has been using,” he said. “That's the part which I think has not been sufficiently recognized even after this war on Ukraine started — whether it's economic or cyber or disinformation warfare, or public health campaigns of subversion… it's all been ongoing.”Heidi Cuda - BYLINE Supplement
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nternational investigators fanning out across the war-ravaged country to gather evidence of Russian atrocities — even as the fighting grinds on.
The focus on war crimes has also renewed interest in questions about the strengths and limitations of international law in constraining aggression and imposing accountability.
The Russian invasion has breathed new life into an international justice system widely seen as toothless and ineffectual. At its center is the ICC, which celebrated its 20th birthday on Friday. The court was established to prosecute the most egregious international crimes, including genocide. In two decades, the ICC has drawn criticism for netting just three war crimes convictions and five for interfering with justice. It has proved challenging to get suspects to the court’s seat in The Hague. Leaders in Africa have for years accused the court of bias.
The refusal of Russia, China and the United States to accept the court’s jurisdiction hasn’t helped — effectively creating an international legal system that lets the most powerful countries off the hook.
Claire Parker with Sammy Westfall The Washington Post
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