The Belgravia house of sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska was occupied by anti-war protestors last night.
Police were called to the scene at 1.10am after a man was seen running across the roof and shimmying down a drain pipe.
Burglary was suspected, but shortly after police arrived at the scene, a legal observer made himself known, and it became clear that instead, protestors were occupying the property.
Earlier this morning, police said that they believe there are six people inside the property.
The protestors have festooned the front of the house with banners reading: “Power breeds parasites.”
“This property has been liberated.”
Deripaska was one of the latest oligarchs to receive sanctions by the UK government, along with Igor Sechin, Dmitry Lebedev, Andrey Kostin, Alexei Miller, Nikolai Tokarev and disqualified Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, on 10 March.
Known as ‘Putin’s favourite industrial’, Deripaska was once Russia’s richest man due to a diverse portfolio of aluminium, energy, and industrial assets.
He was previously sanctioned by the United States between 2018 and 2019 for alleged business malpractice, and was between 2001 and 2018, Deripaska was married to Polina Yumasheva, Boris Yeltsin’s step-granddaughter.
Familial ties with the former Russian president bonded him closer to Yeltsin’s successor, and in 2006, leaked diplomatic cables which came to light in 2010 named Deripaska as “among the two or three oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis.”
Deripaska has been sanctioned by the British government as “a prominent Russian businessman and pro-Kremlin oligarch”, who is also “closely associated with the government of Russia and Vladimir Putin.”
The Russian billionaire has owned the property in Belgravia since 2003, but rarely visits.
A Daily Mail article in 2008 cited that Deripaska visited the home only a handful of times a year.
His other property in the UK is Hamstone House, in Surrey, which Deripaska had been trying to sell but has been taken off the market in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
