Time to stop indulging kleptocrats: The UK and EU must step up as America steps back
Kleptocracy isn’t some exotic export. It’s made here too. Tena Prelec, John Heathershaw and Tom Mayne write as their new book is published.
Roman Abramovich’s story is a parable for our times. After becoming a billionaire in Russia’s lawless 1990s, he accepts Vladimir Putin’s terms to keep his wealth, buys Chelsea Football Club, and is welcomed into British high society. When Catherine Belton revealed his links to the Kremlin in Putin’s People, he responded with lawyers – suing Belton and her publisher in London’s notoriously claimant-friendly courts.
But when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Abramovich offered to act as a peace broker – citing his closeness to the Kremlin as a qualification, and thus completely reneging on his previous claim that he wasn’t close to Putin. That’s when the UK finally froze his assets. Not when the red flags were raised. Not when the lawsuits were flying. Only after the tanks rolled in.
It’s a familiar pattern: pretend not to see it, until it’s too big to ignore.
To its credit, the UK has begun to move on and the picture today is mixed. Russians are largely persona non grata, while kleptocrats from elsewhere remain. Law firms have become more cautious, the government talks a better game, and some enforcement actions have finally landed. A top London firm was just fined £465,000 for breaching sanctions on Russia.
And yet the legal watchdog, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, decided not to proceed in disciplinary action against another London firm that had represented Evgeny Prigozhin, the now-deceased and notorious head of the Wagner military company, in a libel action against a British researcher who had the temerity to call a warlord a warlord. The professionals remain in charge.
Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: the UK didn’t just tolerate kleptocracy. It facilitated it.
Lawyers, PR specialists, estate agents, “reputation managers” – these aren’t neutral service providers. They are the architects of the system.
In our book Indulging Kleptocracy, we call their services “indulgences”: modern equivalents of the Catholic Church’s spiritual absolution in exchange for money in the Middle Ages, that preceded the Reformation. Today’s version includes golden visas, luxury property, elite schooling, and donor access to Westminster. And it comes with something even more valuable than money: legitimacy.
We identify three effects: the alliance effect (when the foreign affairs of states shape outcomes), the incumbency advantage (elites in power being better able to protect their money than exiles who’ve fallen out of favour with their regime), and the enabler effect – which we found to be the most consistently present. If you can afford the best fixers, you win.
The US, under Biden, once led the fightback. It launched a beneficial ownership registry, cracked down on shell companies, and began pushing anti-kleptocracy tools across foreign policy. But now? Trump is back and the reversals are coming fast: the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act paused, beneficial ownership registry enforcement gutted, foreign aid and critical media funding slashed – and just last month, a proposal for “gold cards” for wealthy investors. Asked whether Russian oligarchs might apply, Trump replied that some of them are “very nice people.” An open invitation: come, invest, and reinvent yourselves.
This is enabling of kleptocracy dressed as economic growth. Welcome to the new American dream.
Which means the burden now shifts to Europe – and especially to the UK, which has made so much money off this game. There’s a rare opportunity here: the chance to do the right thing and show leadership in a vacuum.
The EU has its own rot to deal with. Qatargate exposed how easily foreign cash seeps into Brussels. Now the Huawei scandal is lifting the lid on another layer: Chinese tech money, lobbying, and alleged bribery involving at least fifteen current and former MEPs. The old framing of “foreign influence” won’t cut it. The problem isn’t just coming from the outside. It’s also being built on the inside, brick by brick, by willing participants.
If we keep calling it foreign interference, we’ll never fix the enablers at home.
The UK’s Labour government says it wants to take financial crime seriously. Good. Now prove it. The EU says it wants to be a geopolitical actor. Then act like one. With America stepping back, the rest of us have to stop pretending someone else will fix it.
Kleptocracy isn’t some exotic export. It’s made here too. And if we let this moment pass, the next Abramovich, who might not be Russian, won’t even have to offer to negotiate peace. He’ll already own the table – like a tech oligarch brokering wars from his private jet.
The authors have recently published the book Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption (OUP, 2025).
About the authors: John Heathershaw is Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. Tena Prelec is Assistant Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe at the University of Rijeka. Tom Mayne is a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and a former Visiting Fellow at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.