Nicola Sturgeon has ordered officials to draw up a hit-list of Scottish property and land owned by oligarchs and Russian firms.
Registers of Scotland (RoS), which keeps a record of ownership titles, handed over a detailed dossier last week.
It comes as prominent Russians with ties to the Kremlin face tough economic sanctions – with super-yachts, castles, country estates and even football clubs reportedly in the crosshairs of the authorities vowing to get tough on Putin’s inner circle.
A number of high-profile oligarchs with links to the Russian leader own property in Scotland or have been spotted in the country in recent years.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich – who has put the club up for sale and is reported to be offloading UK assets – holidayed off the west coast on his £500million super-yacht Eclipse in 2015 along with billionaire friends.
The RoS document, handed to Scottish and UK government officials, lists property owned by Russian oligarchs, individuals and companies. But critics have warned any sanctions will fail because vast swathes of oligarch-owned land in Scotland is held via secretive offshore firms.
Steel magnate Vladimir Lisin – whose personal wealth tumbled from £17billion to £15billion after the Ukraine invasion – is believed to own the 3300-acre Aberuchill Estate in Perthshire. Lisin, 65, who is the major shareholder in Russian steel firm Novolipetsk, is understood to have bought Aberuchill in 2005 for £6.8million.
A bizarre sign was put up on the estate last week listing the distance to Moscow and other Russian cities, including Ivanovo, where Lisin was born.
Records show Aberuchill Estate – previously a stronghold of the McGregor clan – was bought by a British Virgin Isles company called Forestborne Limited.
And it’s just one of thousands of titles linked to shadowy offshore firms. There are nearly 1.7million registered titles in Scotland and more than 25,000 are outwith the UK, according to an RoS report.
Over 15 per cent of the titles are registered to overseas limited companies and trusts.
In the days after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a mystery private jet was allowed to depart from Inverness Airport to Moscow, despite sanctions in place.
A war of words has broken out between SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford and Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps over the flight, which Blackford described as “gut-wrenching”.
Russian businessman Dr Boris Mints – who alongside Lisin appeared in a US sanctions list in 2017 dubbed the Putin List – said last week his family owned the picturesque Tower of Lethendy through an offshore trust.
Official documents show the 39-acre estate, which comes complete with a golf course and is visited by Mints once a month, is owned by Cayman Island-based MFT Braveheart Limited.
Father-of-four Mints, a property and pension mogul, has distanced himself from Putin. Last week, he told the Sunday Mail the invasion of Ukraine was similar to Hitler’s attack on Poland in 1939.
A decade ago, the SNP Government set up the Land Reform Review Group (LRRG) amid growing anger about the secretive nature of some land ownership. The group recommended banning offshore owners. But the SNP failed to act, even after Sturgeon promised to “shine the bright light of transparency on to he issue of who owns Scotland” in 2016.
Land campaigner and ex-MSP Andy Wightman said the Scottish Government’s reluctance to act on LRRG recommendations meant many sanctions were destined to fail.
He said: “There was an opportunity to stop the offshore ownership of Scotland but the Government missed a trick. It’s now going to prove extremely difficult to enforce any sanctions on property owned that way.”
Other oligarchs with Scottish property interests include vodka baron Yuri Shefler, 54, who reportedly bought the Tulchan Estate in the Highlands for £25million in 2017. The estate is owned by Tulchan Sporting Estates Ltd, which in turn is owned by a limited company and trust in the tax haven of Guernsey.
A year after Abramovich’s trip to Argyll, the son of KGB colonel Vladimir Strzhalkovskiy – who served alongside Putin in the spy agency – bought Knockdow House, close to where Eclipse was moored, for just under £4million.
Monaco-based Evengy registered it in his name, meaning it could be seized if authorities believe he has links to Putin.
Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer said: “It’s a democratic scandal that so much of Scotland’s land is owned by shadowy offshore interests.
“Governments of all stripes over many decades have failed to tackle this.”
Last week, Foreign Minister Liz Truss warned an extensive “hit-list” of oligarchs facing sanctions would be rolled out in the coming weeks.
The Scottish Government has vowed to take strong action on sanctions. It also said a new Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land, to be introduced next month, will make ownership more transparent.
A spokesperson added: “All parts of the Scottish Government have been tasked to consider links we and our agencies have to ensure trading with Russia is withdrawn.”
Registers of Scotland said: “We are working with colleagues across the UK and Scottish governments to ensure the sanctions regime is effective as regards land and property in Scotland.”
Mints said the trust used to buy his Scottish home was set up a “long time ago” to financially protect his family. He added that it meant he paid “materially higher” taxes every year in the UK rather than owning it in his name.
We tried to contact Lisin, Shefler and Strzhalkovskiy.
