Calls Made To Confiscate Putin Ally's Chiswick Flat
Residents say Sergey Brilev shouldn't profit from propaganda
Sergey Brilev and his wife Irina outside Chiswick House. Picture: Facebook
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A number of residents of an apartment block in Chiswick have called for the flat of a key ally of Vladimir Putin to be confiscated.
Journalist Sergey Brilev, who previously lived in the area, but is now back in Russia working for a state TV channel, reportedly bought the flat near Turnham Green for £700,000 in 2017.
He also was given a British passport and appeared on the electoral role.
He is currently aiming to help Putin's war effort by fronting news programmes which claim that the invasion of Ukraine is justified and the military campaign is going well.
Brilev's ownership of the flat was first revealed back in 2018 by the prominent opponent of Putin, Alexei Navalny. Checks made with the Land Registry database suggest there has been no change of ownership since that time.
The block where Brilev purchased the flat
Navalny said, 'This man has been sitting next to Putin for 17 years - the TV presenter of his hotlines.
'He tells us every week how great it is to live in Putin's Russia, yet officially he is a subject of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.'
One of the residents of the block where Brilev reportedly owns a flat said, "He makes his money by being the paid lackey of Putin. When he was here in London he was an apologist for the Sailsbury poisonings which you could argue makes him an accessory to murder. His record since shows he was never the unbiased objective journalist he claimed to be when he was reporting from the UK. Giving people like this a passport is obscene. Would you like having Goebbels living next to you?"
Brilev denies that there was anything untoward about his acquisition of the flat and says that it was paid for using legitimate earnings made in this country rather than laundered cash and these were declared to the tax authorities.
He also disputes that he is a mouthpiece for Putin saying he has in the past voted for the opposition and criticised policies of the President.
He is not on the list of Russians which the UK government says it is taking sanctions against personally and it us understood that he holds the property in his own name rather than through a shell company as most oligarchs have done.
A local lawyer said, "The government looks set to make significant changes to the law which would give them more powers of confiscation allowing them to take the property of people associated with a hostile foreign power. Ironically, Brilev may be the low-hanging fruit that the new rules will enable to be harvested whilst the real kleptocrats will keep their huge properties in central London."
Brilev has interviewed Putin many times and hosted the TV coverage of events such as his inaugurations and televised phone-ins with the Russian leader. He has also interview world figures such as Barack Obama, George W Bush, Tony Blair and Hugo Chavez as well as Boris Johnson.
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February 27, 2022
