UK announces 'most severe package' of sanctions on Russian banks, companies

LONDON

Britain on Thursday has announced further sanctions targeting Russian banks, companies, entities and individuals.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the sanctions as the "largest and most severe package" of sanctions "that Russia has ever seen," as Moscow launched a military intervention into Ukraine.

Giving a statement at the House of Commons, Johnson said Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “blood-stained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest” and was “always determined to attack his neighbour, no matter what we did.”

Putin "will never be able to cleanse the blood of Ukraine from his hands", he said, adding that he will be "condemned" in the eyes of the world and of history.

Johnson said the UK will target all major Russian banks, five oligarchs and more than 100 companies and individuals.

The UK will freeze the assets of all major Russian banks next week, the prime minister said, but he added that the VTB Bank will see an immediate “full asset freeze.”

Russia’s defense company Rostec will also be hit by the new sanctions. Johnson said legislation will be introduced to block major Russian companies to raise finance and stop the Russian state from raising sovereign debt on British markets.

He said the UK will extend sanctions to Belarus for aiding the military intervention into Ukraine.

The prime minister also said the state-owned Russian airliners Aeroflot will be banned from landing in the UK.

Earlier this week, the UK had announced sanctions against five Russian banks and various individuals.

Johnson said the UK will “counter the Kremlin's blizzard of lies, and disinformation by telling the truth about Putin's war of choice and his war of aggression and we will work with our allies on the urgent need to protect other European countries that are not members of NATO and who could become targets of Putin's playbook of subversion and aggression.”

The prime minister said he has “called for a meeting of NATO leaders, which will take place tomorrow and I will be convening the countries that contribute to the joint expeditionary force, which is led by the United Kingdom and comprises of both NATO and non-NATO members.”

Donbas crisis and Russia’s military intervention

The February 2014 “Maidan revolution” in Ukraine led to former President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country and a pro-Western government coming to power.

That was followed by Russia illegally annexing the Crimea region and separatists declaring independence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, both of which have large ethnic Russian populations.

As clashes erupted between Russian-backed separatist forces and the Ukrainian army, the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements were signed in Moscow after the intervention of Western powers.

The conflict, however, simmered for years with persistent cease-fire violations. As of February 2022, some 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Tensions started escalating late last year when Ukraine, the US and its allies accused Russia of amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine.

They claimed Russia was preparing to invade its western neighbor, allegations that were consistently rejected by Moscow.

Defying threats of sanctions by the West, Moscow officially recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states earlier this week, followed by the start of a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday.

Putin said the operation aims to protect people “subjected to genocide” by Kyiv and to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine, while calling on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms.