UK government puts photo of wrong Russian on oligarch sanction announcement

Foreign Office forced to delete statement

The headquarters of Russia’s Rossiya Bank in St. Petersburg (AFP via Getty Images)

The British government is facing ridicule after putting a photograph of the wrong person on an announcement about sanctions for Russian oligarchs.

The Foreign Office on Thursday announced it would be sanctioning Dmitri Lebedev – chair of the board of Bank Rossiya.

But an announcement posted on social media included a photograph of a completely different person.

A graphic bearing Mr Lebedev's name actually bore the picture of Dmitri Medvedev, a former prime minister of the country from 2012 to 2020.

It was pushed out to the public via the FCDO's social media channels.

After users on social media pointed out the error with the post, it was deleted by officials – though without a correction.

The measures against Mr Lebedev was part of a package announced on Thursday of new sanctions on seven individuals, including Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club.

The UK had previously been criticised for being slow to sanctions wealthy Russians with links to the Kremlin, compared to other countries like the EU.

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said the latest sanctions were a case of “shutting the door after the private jet has bolted”.

Of the error, she added: "This is an embarrassing mistake from the Foreign Office. If an oligarch was sanctioned every time Liz Truss's Foreign Office published a photo on social media, we'd have sanctioned the lot by now."

A spokesperson for the FCDO said: “This was an administrative error which was quickly spotted and rectified.”