Thread by @TomilaLankina

The segment in the @BBC feature below is taken from a longish interview @BBCChrisMorris recorded with me about #Russia #sanctions last week. I don’t blame journalists or producers but worth mentioning that perhaps due to editorial issues it omitted the following (see thread):

https://twitter.com/LSEIRDept/status/1496454833930477574

1) That I began by saying this was an opportune moment to discuss #sanctions against #Russia. I was on strike supporting #UCUStrikes and colleagues on precarious contracts and protesting against #USS pension cuts.

2) That I thought the Lincoln's Inn Fields backdrop of striking #UCUStrikes LSE campus was symbolic. Some of the things I said were:

3) #LSE is surrounded by dirty money properties acquired by the #Azerbaijan Aliev clan; my Azeri colleague @gubad_ibadoglu who suffered from the Aliev regime because he exposed corruption in the oil sector has made public statements about this in the UK.

4) Blocks of buildings near Holborn. And of course #Russian #oligarch properties bought with stolen money. Inflated London property market is just one side effect of the London #laundromat Academic staff and fellow @LSEIRDept students cannot afford property anywhere near #LSE .

5) That the UK should strangle the sources of slush funds fuelling #Putin machinery of bribery, assassinations, and disinformation campaigns. That the @BBCRadio4 tends not to make UK public figures urging “soft touch” to disclose sinecures on Russian company boards.

6) That #Putin has long waged a war on his own people and has created a machinery of coercion—national guard, police, army rank and file absorbing precariat-young men without prospects--cast out of decent jobs because of #Russia economic woes after 20 yrs of #Putin rule.

7) That dirty money has sunk so deeply into the British body politic as to effect a deep process of erosion of democratic institutions. That the UK government should have imposed meaningful sanctions years ago without waiting for dictators to invade sovereign countries.

8) That anodyne half-measures of the #Johnson government consequently have failed the Russian, Ukrainian and British citizens alike.