Who is Igor Shuvalov, the ‘Kremlin crony’ mentioned by Keir Starmer at PMQs

Shuvalov is on the EU's sanctions list but not on the UK sanctions list.

Shuvalov

During PMQs yesterday, Keir Starmer pushed Boris Johnson to take tougher action against oligarchs linked to President Vladimir Putin, as the Labour leader offered support in helping to strengthen a new bill to crackdown on illicit assets following Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Starmer chose to specifically mention the likes of Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club who many will be familiar with. Yet he also mentioned Igor Shuvalov. So, who exactly is Shuvalov?

Starmer told the Commons: ‘Last week, Putin summoned to the Kremlin the cronies who prop up his regime. They dip their hands in the blood of Putin’s war.

“Among them was Igor Shuvalov, Putin’s former deputy prime minister. Shuvalov owns two flats, not five minutes’ walk from this house. They’re worth over £11 million. He is on the EU sanctions list, but he’s not on the UK sanctions list. When will the prime minister sort this out?”

Igor Shuvalov’s family wealth is reported to be around $200 million, and he is, as Starmer pointed out, under EU sanctions for supporting ‘policies that undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine’.

Since 2018 Shuvalov has also served as chair of Russia’s development bank VEB, which the Guardian describes as a ‘key source of funding for the Kremlin’s priority projects, including the Sochi Olympics’. The Times reported in 2016 that Shuvalov had ‘used a £38 million private jet to transport his wife’s corgis to dog shows across Europe’.

Shuvalov was also named by Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny as the owner of two luxury apartments in Whitehall Court.

Navalny’s Fund for the Fight Against Corruption says that Shuvalov turned the two flats into a 500 sq metre luxury apartment.

Shuvalov also worked as a lawyer before becoming a state official. Between 2012 and 2018 he served as first deputy prime minister under Dmitry Medvedev and then Vladimir Putin.

One has to wonder why someone with such close links to Putin has not been put on the UK’s sanctions list.

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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