To Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, an idyllic peninsula on the Côte d’Azur, several Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the European Union, such as Arkadi Rotenberg and Viktor Rashnikov, have luxurious villas that must be watched. Except that the latter no longer have means of payment and transfer. “More than two months ago, we were with a client who bought a residence, explains Eric rollin, manager of Global Safety, a company specializing in private security. Everything had to be signed, and suddenly he didn’t give us any more news, since he was sanctioned economically.” The economic losses are enormous: “Over two years, this contract could go up to one million euros, and a monthly contract represents between “35,000 and 50,000 euros”. One example among others because in his portfolio of clients he has a total of five oligarchs’ villas to be secured with guards and cameras. Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many Russian companies and nationals have been blacklisted by Westerners.
Eric’s company Rollin has already lost 60% of turnover, and he fears 80% losses by the end of the year if the situation does not change. The twenty employees who were to come as reinforcements in June will not ultimately sign a contract.
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In addition to the economic impact, there is also another problem, because these unsupervised opulent residences become de facto vulnerable, as shown by images captured by surveillance cameras positioned on neighboring houses. “There you see three individuals who present themselves in front of a private property. We realize that they are going to enter this private property to go and rob, describes Eric Rollin. It happened last week. There is no more guarding, there is no more surveillance, no more electronic surveillance.”
The surveillance sector is not the only one to be affected. out of 12 000 yachts spread around the world, 1 200 belong to Russians, and some of them are maintained and repainted in French ports. In this sector, the sanctions taken against the Russian oligarchs have an impact which already amounts to millions of euros, as explained by the vice-president of the association “riviera Yachting Network”, a group of 130 companies specializing in yacht repair.
“We had signed two contracts on two Russian boats over 100 meters long, which were to arrive in French shipyards. They turned around in the middle of the Atlantic.”
David Sieur, vice-president of the “Riviera Yachting Netwok” associationat franceinfo
When David Sieur calculates the loss of money for the coming months, the situation is not better: “We consider that 400 Russian yachts are likely to be seized. But the difficulty is to make the link between a list of oligarchs and a boat name. And for the companies that work on these yachts, it is complicated to know if we can work on them and if we will be paid. We don’t necessarily know the owners of the boats.”
There is also great concern in the aviation sector, where the losses are also significant. Russian carriers are prohibited from flying over the airspace of The union andEuropean, just like private business jets. A situation that directly impacts Vitaly Arkhangelsky, a broker of Russian origin based in Nice: “I haven’t had any customers since February 24. I lost between 200,000 and 300,000 euros”.
He does not lose thousands of euros, but notices like the others that his customers no longer come, and therefore no longer spend. According to Gilbert Vissian, manager of the African Queens restaurant in Beaulieu-sur-Mer is due to the surrounding climate. “You have people who live in Monaco, who have Russian registrations, and who don’t dare take their car out because they are scratched. It’s a psychosis against Russians and it’s a bit of a shame” he explains.
For the restaurant owner, “the people who live here have nothing to do with the war”. He’s not sure it’s “all allies of Mr Putin”. According to him, to escape this complicated atmosphere, some clients have gone to live in Dubai.