AN armed mutiny in Russia that saw mercenary troops come within 125 miles of Moscow might not seem to have a direct impact on London – but in a way it is closer than we might think.
When these Wagner Group mercenaries rebelled, it was because of the vicious political infighting between their head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his rival, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
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It was a shocking embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin.
But as Kremlin spin doctors try to explain this away, it is no surprise that some of them are blaming us.
Britain and Russia have a long and complex relationship.
Murderous 16th- century Tsar Ivan the Terrible even offered Queen Elizabeth I his hand in marriage.
No surprise the “Virgin Queen” did not accept, but ever since, we have sometimes been enemies, sometimes allies — and we have never been off Russia’s radar.
On the one hand, Russians are fans of everything British.
Back in Soviet times, when most foreign books were banned, there was even an underground market in used Agatha Christie mysteries and Dick Francis thrillers.
Today, we are still seen as a champion of law and justice.
On the other, the Russians also see us as their most subtle enemy.
As a figure close to the Kremlin put it to me: “The Americans have the muscle, but the British have the brains.”
Already, then, there are claims that we encouraged Prigozhin or even staged a missile attack on his troops on Friday to provoke the mutiny.
Nonsense, of course, but a mark of the desperation of Putin’s propagandists and also how London still matters there.
‘Message board almost melted down’
One question must be how the current crisis will impact London.
The Government will obviously be considering how it affects policy, but there are also going to be effects on the city that gained the nickname “Londongrad” for the large amounts of Russian money and business which has come here over the years.
In the ten years up to 2021, for example, the number of UK properties owned by Russians increased 12 times, with most of them in London.
There is also still a substantial community of Russians in the capital.
There are some 49,000 Russian nationals living in the UK, but many more have since ditched their Russian passports, and the last estimate is that there are 150,000 ethnic Russians in London alone.
This community has been avidly following the news from Russia.
Alina, who runs a message board for Russians living in London, usually hosting discussions about where to buy genuine imported caviar and frozen dumplings, said: “Last weekend it almost melted down. Everyone wanted to know what was going on.”
Social media posts showing Wagner troops in control of the city of Rostov-on-Don or heading up the motorway towards Moscow were being circulated, and rumours about the government falling or Putin fleeing Moscow (this last one proved true) were being discussed into the early hours.
Everyone seems to agree that although Putin got through this crisis, he is now weaker than ever.
Most of his troops did not want to protect him, and having first called Prigozhin a “traitor” who had stabbed the Motherland in the back, he then had to give him a pardon and a flight out of the country.
For some of the Russians in “Londongrad”, this is good news.
They are waiting for the day that they can safely head back home.
For others, it is a worry.
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They may live in Britain, but their businesses are still in Russia and they still depend on Putin’s favour.
So while no one is heading back to Russia right now, everyone is carefully watching what happens.
Before Putin annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014 and Britain started imposing sanctions on anyone connected to him, London was a playground for the richest Russians, the oligarchs.
Those days are largely over.
The Government has put sanctions on more than 1,200 Russians and frozen assets they own worth £18billion.
Together, that is worth more than the entire Crown Estate.
But that’s still only part of the £27billion Russians were estimated to have invested in Britain at peak.
With more and more of them coming under sanctions, though, it is no wonder most oligarchs have headed to places such as Dubai, even if a great deal of their money still sloshes through the City of London.
This means there are a lot of empty, high-end properties in London whose owners cannot return to Britain or else those which have been frozen by sanctions.
Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is trying to sell his £150million, 15-bedroom mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens and his £22million three-storey penthouse on the Chelsea Waterfront.
Although the rumour is that there is some interest from a Chinese billionaire, it does not look as if they will quickly be sold.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that the phosphate billionaire Andrey Guryev is under sanctions, he still owns Witanhurst in Highgate, North London.
This is London’s second-largest house after Buckingham Palace, worth more than £350million.
Estate agents who deal with this kind of property complain that the market is still depressed.
But it is hard to feel sympathy towards a sector that was kept afloat by billions in dirty Russian money.
Elite private schools that used to take in the kids of rich Russians have also seen a fall in business.
Last year there were more than 2,300 in fee-paying schools and there was talk that they would take a potential £31.5million hit if all the Russians were forced out.
‘Good at hiding where the money comes from’
But if most of the oligarchs have left, there are still the “minigarchs”, not billionaires but mere millionaires.
There are a lot more of them still here: As of last year, there were an estimated 1,895 Russian-owned properties in London alone.
What’s interesting is that these people are more likely not to have cut their ties to Russia, and often still have more sympathy for Putin.
They are less well-known, though, and often work hard to stay under the radar.
A National Crime Agency analyst who tracks them grumbled: “They are bloody good at hiding where their money comes from and where it’s going.”
Many of these people are hedging their bets. They are happy to enjoy the quality of life in London but are still willing to maintain their connections to Putin’s regime.
Sometimes, of course, that means they are expected to prove that loyalty.
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The National Crime Agency analyst told me: “They may still be expected to send money to people or groups the Kremlin would like to fund.”
Although not the major political parties, he suggested that it might include “fringe and radical groups — anyone causing chaos”.
Then there are the Russians who are in London because they had to flee Putin’s dictatorship.
Britain has a long, proud record of giving asylum to Russians fleeing terror, from the 15,000 “White Russians” who fled the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to today’s political refugees.
Some have set up the Russian Democratic Society, an organisation of emigres committed to resisting Putin and raising money for humanitarian help for Ukraine.
Even more ambitious is the exiled businessman and now opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Once the richest man in Russia, when he dared criticise corruption under Putin he was arrested and his company taken over.
He spent ten years in labour camps and from London now bankrolls anti-Putin activism.
After Prigozhin’s mutiny, he called for Putin to be toppled by an armed uprising, warning that if democrats could not seize power it would be violent ultra-nationalists.
However, as Putin’s grip on power looks increasingly shaky, some rich Russians are again trying to get out.
Cutting their ties to the regime, even leaving behind property and businesses, they are off to London.
Unlike the old oligarchs, they are not trying to be flashy but instead keep a low profile.
They know this is not a good time to be a Russian abroad — and also do not want to attract the attention of Putin’s spies and thugs.
But they are coming back, and this time they are coming less for the opportunities to launder their dirty money in the City but because Britain and London stand for something.
As a lawyer helping one of them set up a new company in London said: “They have a sense of the UK as this place that has a great tradition of fairness and freedom. They have the money to go anywhere — New York, Paris, wherever. But they choose London.”
The crisis in Russia may seem very distant.
But all the pressures and divisions we see in Moscow, from oligarchs fawning on Putin to keep their ill-gotten wealth to brave protesters still challenging his dictatorship, are also being played out in London.
- Mark Galeotti is the author of We Need To Talk About Putin.
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