UK to impose sanctions against five Russian banks and three individuals
Britain on Tuesday put sanctions on five Russian banks and three high-net worth individuals including Gennady Timchenko after Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway areas in eastern Ukraine.
“This is the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do,” the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, told parliament.
“Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen and the individuals concerned will be banned from travelling here,” Johnson said of the individuals being sanctioned.
Timchenko is a close ally of Putin. The sanctioned banks are Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank, Johnson said.
“We must now brace ourselves for the next possible stages of Putin’s plan,” Johnson told the lower house of the British parliament. “Putin is establishing the pretext for a full scale offensive.”
The other two Russians facing sanctions are Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg.
Britain has threatened to cut off Russian companies’ access to US dollars and British pounds, blocking them from raising capital in London and to expose what Johnson calls the “Russian doll” of property and company ownership.
Russia’s once mighty superpower economy is now smaller than Italy’s based on IMF data, with a nominal GDP of around $1.7tn (£1.25tn).
More follows soon…
Read more on theguardian.com
