As Parliament debates a new law to enable the New Zealand Government to impose sanctions over the war in Ukraine, a peace flotilla is preparing to sail north to make sure the Government puts those laws into action.
The iconic protest yacht SV Vega with Greenpeace aboard will receive a sendoff from Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour tomorrow morning at 09:00am at the Maritime Museum alongside Princes Wharf.
(C) Greenpeace / Oaaraki
Vega will sail north to join the flotilla along with the SV Windbourne, before heading for Russian billionaire oligarch Alexander Abramov’s luxury Northland lodge in Helena Bay.
The flotilla aims to arrive in Helena Bay on Sunday morning to deliver a message of peace and a call on the Government to immediately “freeze oligarch’s assets” to apply pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war on Ukraine.
On board Vega will be Greenpeace Aotearoa programme director Niamh O’Flynn who says, “Today the Parliament will pass a new law under urgency to enable freezing the assets of Russian oligarchs, and that’s great but we need to see it in action too. People in Ukraine are dying now. There can be no delay. Our message to the Government is to freeze oligarch assets now.”
“If the Government is serious about using sanctions to pressure Putin, then they must go for the big fish quickly. That means freezing Alexander Abramov’s assets, as New Zealand’s richest Russian investor,” she says.
On Saturday, Greenpeace called on the Government to immediately freeze the New Zealand assets of Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin, until the Russian President ends his war against Ukraine. Over 8,000 people have now signed the petition to support that call.
Greenpeace has condemned the Russian government’s war in Ukraine, and has called on President Putin to immediately pull back his forces and cease military operations.
ENDS
In the name of peace, call on the New Zealand Government to freeze the assets of Russian billionaire oligarchs to pressure Vladimir Putin to call off the Russian Military invasion of Ukraine.
