LEE KRAMER'S ROOM: With Views

[ergo sum]

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https://www.ft.com/content/5e4ffb26-a167-4b90-9981-084fc6a50ea4

In the days before European banks froze cross-border transactions with Russia, the wife of the oligarch Petr Aven spent time in London on an urgent mission: travelling around cash machines taking out as much money as she could to prepare for what was to come.

Later, the EU and then the UK imposed sanctions on Aven, freezing his bank account and assets, including a top-floor duplex flat in London’s affluent St James’s neighbourhood and an art-filled mansion in a commuter suburb.

The Russian former academic, politician and businessman — worth £4.5bn last month, according to government estimates — now says he does not know if he can pay even the most basic of bills.

His life changed overnight, he says with a snap of his fingers. “Our business is completely destroyed. Everything which we were building for 30 years is now completely ruined. And we have to somehow start a new life.”