A multimillion-pound mansion in central London owned by the family of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch subject to sanctions, was occupied for a time by protesters who wanted to open its rooms to house Ukrainian refugees.
Squatters broke into the Belgravia mansion on Sunday night, hanging the Ukrainian flag and a banner outside reading: “The property has been liberated.” In a statement, the group said: “Russian oligarchs: You occupy Ukraine, We Occupy You!”
They declared that the house at 5 Belgrave Square, which has its own cinema, “belongs to Ukrainian refugees” and that they would not be moved until Russia ended the war. The protesters are calling themselves the London Makhnovists after Nestor Makhno, a 20th-century Ukrainian anarchist.
The move puts the protesters on unlikely common ground with “levelling-up” secretary Michael Gove, who has said he wants to seize luxury mansions from Russian oligarchs to house Ukrainians.