UK government confuses former Russian president with sanctioned oligarch
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office deleted a post on Twitter on Thursday after using a photo of former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in a post announcing sanctions on businessman Dmitri Lebedev.
The tweet, which was swiftly removed after the mistake was noticed, showed a photo of the former Russian leader and stated that the Bank Rossiya chairman of the board of directors had been sanctioned by the UK government’s oligarch taskforce.
The mix-up came as the UK laid out sanctions against seven Russian individuals in what the British government claims is an estimated £15 billion ($19.76 billion) sanctions hit in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Alongside Lebedev, Russians Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, Igor Sechin, Andrey Kostin, Alexei Miller and Nikolai Tokarev were all hit by the new round of sanctions, freezing their assets, banning them from traveling to the UK and barring any citizen or company from doing business with them.
“Today’s sanctions show once again that oligarchs and kleptocrats have no place in our economy or society. With their close links to Putin, they are complicit in his aggression,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stated in a press release.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has not issued a comment on the photo mix-up.
