Grassroots activists organising aid for Ukraine told VICE World News they could have ordered 150 bulletproof vests with the amount it cost to police the protest
By Simon Childs, May 13, 2022
Police in London deployed 176 officers costing over £80,000 in response to four pro-Ukraine protesters who temporarily occupied a mansion allegedly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
On the 14th of March, anarchist squatters occupied a west London mansion linked to Oleg Deripaska, an industrialist who made his fortune from energy and metals. In a statement, the protesters said, “Russian oligarchs: You occupy Ukraine, we occupy you.”
They intended for the house to “serve as a centre for refugee support, for Ukrainians and people of all nations and all ethnicities,” the statement said. The day before, senior UK government minister Michael Gove said the government wanted to “explore an option” of using sanctioned oligarchs’ mansions to house refugees from Ukraine.
