The US imposed sanctions on oligarchs Aven and Fridman, who do not live in russia

A year and a half after the start of the russian invasion, the United States added the founders of Alfa Group, Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman, to the sanctions list.

Fridman and Aven do not live in russia, although they have long been on the EU and British sanctions lists, which they have been trying to challenge. They were even vouched for by some russian politicians who had traveled abroad, although this caused a scandal.

In the spring, it became known that Fridman and Aven were preparing to sell their stakes in russia's Alfa Bank, primarily to try to get the sanctions lifted. At the time, a Financial Times source said that they were ready to do anything for this.

In May, the BBC reported that they were preparing to sell other assets in russia, such as Alfa Insurance. This became known after the Ukrainian publication Schemes found out that the company insures russian military equipment.

The inclusion of Fridman and Aven on the US sanctions list sends a clear message to russian businessmen: people closely associated with the russian government are unlikely to be able to avoid sanctions, analysts say.

At the same time, Fridman publicly opposed the war, but he was much more reserved than Oleg Tinkov, who managed to get the sanctions lifted.

The example of Tinkov is rather an exception: his lawyers were able to prove that there were no close ties, and Tinkoff Bank did not even issue cards to Crimean residents after the annexation. It is unlikely that the same can be proved for Fridman and Aven.

This week, the founder of Yandex, Arkady Volozh, also condemned the war.