A private plane with suspected links to Russia has been impounded at Farnborough airport in Hampshire just hours before it was due to fly to Dubai.
The aircraft was detained on the orders of the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, late on Tuesday and investigators are looking into its connection with a billionaire oil tycoon, Eugene Shvidler, a friend of Roman Abramovich.
A UK government source said Shvidler was “free to continue his journey by other means” after the plane was impounded. They said the plane would be able to leave Farnborough only if no link with Russia was established, and the process was likely to take longer than a day.
The Bombardier Global 6500 jet arrived in Farnborough from the US state of New jersey on Friday 4 March and was due to fly to Dubai on Tuesday afternoon.
Using new powers that came into force on Tuesday night, Shapps revoked the plane’s foreign carrier permit, meaning it could not legally carry passengers, and issued a restriction of flying order, in effect grounding the plane.
Shapps told LBC radio on Wednesday: “We know that it isn’t a Russian company that holds the aircraft, it’s rather a Luxembourg-registered aircraft. We are carrying out further checks before releasing it and what we won’t do is allow any Russian oligarchs to pass on that jet when it does eventually go.”
The inquiry into the plane’s ownership and operation was launched on the advice of the attorney general, Suella Braverman, and is being assisted by the National Crime Agency.
Russian airlines and private jets had already been banned from landing in the UK, and overnight the Foreign Office and the Department for Transport announced new powers making it a criminal offence for any Russian aircraft to fly or land in the UK.
The ban includes any aircraft owned, operated or chartered by anyone connected with Russia or designated individuals or entities on the sanctions list. It also allows the government to detain any aircraft owned by persons connected with Russia.
The Foreign Office said the new sanctions would also prevent aviation and aerospace-related exports, including insurance and reinsurance through UK-based insurers or reinsurers. This means the withdrawal of UK insurance cover on existing policies in the two sectors and a ban on payouts for claims on existing policies.
Shapps said there had been just 760 visas issued to Ukrainians with family ties to Britain who wanted to join them. About 22,000 people had so far applied to come to the UK in an effort to flee the Russian invasion, he added.
The minister said the details about the siege of Ukrainian cities by Russian forces were “pure evil” and heartbreaking, but he defended Britain taking about a third of the number of Ukrainian refugees taken by Ireland.
Shapps said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had voiced hopes that those forced to leave Ukraine would move to neighbouring countries so they could come back to help rebuild after the war.
Shapps also said the UK government wanted to speed up visa processing and “make these things as unbureaucratic as possible”, but added that it was important security checks were carried out on those seeking to come to the UK.
“I think you would expect us to be wanting to check people’s status before they come in,” he said. “We know that Russia are involved in all manner of operations so it’s absolutely right to check that somebody is coming from Ukraine and know who is coming to this country, essentially, and that’s what we are doing.”
Shapps said the decision not to have a visa application centre in Calais was to avoid Ukrainians becoming the target of people smugglers who operated around the Channel port.
He sidestepped questions about a claim by another Conservative MP that the home secretary, Priti Patel, had misled parliamentwhen she said a processing centre “en route” to Calais would be set up and that staff were “on the ground” there.
“I do know that in Lille there is a centre being set up. I do also know that because of the nature of the situation in Calais – the long-term issues there of criminal gangs bringing people across – we are very keen to separate these two issues,” Shapps said.
