Russia-Ukraine: UK sanctions banks, 3 individuals

LONDON, Feb 23 – The UK on Tuesday announced a set of sanctions against Russia over the latter’s latest moves against Ukraine.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who made a statement in the House of Commons on the situation in Ukraine announced the sanctions against five Russian banks: Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank as the Russia-Ukraine crisis escalated.

He also announced that the country was sanctioning three very high net worth individuals: Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg, and Igor Rotenberg.

“Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen, the individuals concerned will be banned from travelling here, and we will prohibit all UK individuals and entities from having any dealings with them.

“This is the first tranche, the first barrage, of what we are prepared to do: we will hold further sanctions at readiness, to be deployed alongside the United States and the European Union if the situation escalates still further.”

On Monday the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed documents recognising two cities within Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk as people’s republics and later followed it with an announcement that Russia would be sending troops to the areas for peacekeeping.

Boris Johnson in his statement said Putin had “flagrantly violated the Minsk peace agreements by recognising the supposed independence of the so-called “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.”

“In a single inflammatory speech, he denied that Ukraine had any “tradition of genuine statehood”, claimed that it posed a “direct threat to the security of Russia”, and hurled numerous other false accusations and aspersions.”

Boris Johnson said that there should be no doubt that the deployment of these forces in sovereign Ukrainian territory amounted to a renewed invasion of that country.

He also said the UK has doubled the size of its deployment in Estonia, where the British Army leads NATO’s battlegroup.

The United States and European Union have also announced several sanctions against Russia, while Japan today announced several sanctions against Russia.

–WE