It comes just days after the British government unveiled further measures aimed at targeting those who “help and incite” Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – now in its seventh week. Moscow’s action was taken “in view of the unprecedented hostility of the British government, in particular the imposition of sanctions on senior Russian officials,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. The blacklist includes Deputy Prime Minister Dominique Raab, Secretary of State Liz Tras, Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace, Chancellor Risi Sunak, former Prime Minister Theresa May and Scottish Prime Minister Nicolas Sterge. The Kremlin added that the move was a response to “the unbridled information and political campaign in London aimed at isolating Russia internationally, creating the conditions for restricting our country and strangling the domestic economy.” In March, similar measures were taken against US President Joe Biden, along with CIA chief William Burns and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Since the Russian invasion began, the Foreign Office has seized assets in the Kremlin’s major banks, including Sberbank, military officers involved in the bombing of the besieged city of Mariupol, and oligarchs. This map shows the extent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on April 13 (Press Association Pictures) Last week, in coordination with the EU, the United Kingdom imposed a series of new sanctions on 178 Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, as the foreign minister vowed to crack down on those “helping and inciting” Putin’s war machine. The government also supplies defense weapons to the Ukrainian government, including anti-tank missiles, which have been used against Russian forces in key cities. “The British leadership is deliberately aggravating the situation around Ukraine, is using the Kiev regime with deadly weapons and is coordinating similar efforts on behalf of NATO,” the Russian ministry added. Johnson’s government has been criticized for failing to crack down on individual oligarchs and the flow of Russian “dirty money” linked to the United Kingdom. However, the Foreign Office said last week that the United Kingdom has imposed sanctions on more than 1,400 individuals and businesses – including more than 100 oligarchs and family members – since the invasion of Ukraine began.
