Ukraine conflict: Boris Johnson defends UK sanctions measures against Russia - BBC News

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Boris Johnson has defended his sanctions against Russia, saying the UK is "out in front" when it comes to global actions against Vladimir Putin.

He promised a "further package of military support" for Ukraine, with the assets of five Russian banks and three Russian billionaires already frozen.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer urged the PM to bring in laws to stop oligarchs buying UK firms and property.

But Mr Johnson said no government could "conceivably be doing more".

Russian President Mr Putin ordered troops into the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine on Monday, after recognising them as independent.

It is not clear if any new Russian troops have yet been sent into the two regions, which are run by Moscow-backed separatists.

Earlier, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said Mr Putin had gone "full tonto" in escalating the Ukraine crisis, adding that he had "no friends, no alliances" internationally.

In comments made to serving military personnel, the former Scots Guards officer added that his regiment had "kicked the backside" of Russia's Tsar Nicolas I in the Crimean war in the mid-19th Century, arguing that "we can always do it again".

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Amid a largely sombre atmosphere at Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir said: "We all want to deter aggression in Europe.

"We are not dealing with breakaway republics. Putin is not a peacekeeper. A sovereign nation has been invaded.

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"The prime minister promised that in the event of an invasion he would unleash a full package of sanctions. If not now, then when?"

Mr Johnson replied: "I don't think people quite realise the UK is out in front. We have sanctioned 275 individuals already."

He added: "There is more to come and we will be stopping Russia from raising sovereign debt, stopping companies from raising money and stopping Russian companies... even clearing in sterling and dollars on international markets."

Mr Johnson also confirmed that the media watchdog Ofcom was reviewing Russia Today's licence to broadcast in the UK.

And he said an Economic Crime Bill will be brought forward in the next parliamentary session to "peel back the facade" of beneficial ownership by Russians and others of UK property and companies.

But Sir Keir said this should be brought forward to the current session, adding that Labour would support such a move.

Downing Street would not provide further details on the equipment being provided to Ukraine, for "operational security reasons".

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The UK has promised to impose sanctions on the members of Russia's parliament who voted in support of the breakaway states in eastern Ukraine.

The prime minister's spokesman said on Wednesday: "We can do this under existing legislation.

"We are finalising the evidence to bring forward new designations against the 351 members of the Russian State Assembly [or Duma] and the members of the Federation Council who voted in that way."

The EU has also said parliamentarians who backed Mr Putin over Ukraine will face sanctions.

And it is extending them to 27 more "high-profile individuals and entities", taking the total number affected to 555 individuals and 52 entities.

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In addition, Germany has said it will freeze approval of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Russia.

Downing Street is holding a summit with finance chiefs and regulators to discuss how to make UK sanctions effective.

Sources have told the BBC that Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has written up a "long list" of Russian individuals and organisations, including more oligarchs and banks close to the Kremlin, to be sanctioned if the situation in Ukraine gets worse.

The Foreign Office is also likely to target Russian companies in the defence, energy, technology and chemical sectors.

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2022-02-23 17:06:42Z
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EU to hit Putin’s defence minister and chief of staff with sanctions - Financial Times

Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff and his defence minister have been blacklisted by the EU as part of the bloc’s first round of sanctions against Moscow as the US warned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could start imminently.

Anton Vaino, chief of staff in Putin’s presidential executive office, and Sergei Shoigu, defence minister, are among 27 people and entities named in a list of restrictive measures agreed by the EU’s member states.

Sanctions were also imposed on two of Russia’s deputy prime ministers for their work in “threaten[ing] the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”, and the heads of Russia’s navy, army and air force, in what EU officials said was the first of potentially multiple waves of measures against Moscow.

The decisions came as a Pentagon official warned that Russia could launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine at any moment after the Russian military put in place 100 per cent of the troops and weapons that it requires for a large attack on the country.

“Putin and his forces are as ready as they can be,” a senior US defence official said. “They’ve advanced their readiness to a point where they are literally ready to go now if they get the order . . . They could go at any hour now.”

The official added that Russia has already positioned more than two dozen warships in the Black Sea, including 10 amphibious landing ships. “These ships exist for one reason and that is to put boots on the ground,” he said.

Charles Michel, European Council president, has convened a summit of the bloc’s leaders in Brussels on Thursday to discuss “how we deal with Russia” and hold Moscow accountable for its actions.

“The use of force and coercion to change borders has no place in the 21st century,” he said in a letter to EU leaders.

The EU’s move against Vaino and Shoigu, who are members of Russia’s powerful security council, takes the bloc’s Ukraine-related sanctions to Putin’s inner circle of advisers. The measures involve an asset freeze and a ban on providing funds to those listed, and a block on travel to and within the EU.

The sanctions are a first step by the EU to punish Russia for its actions in eastern Ukraine, with policymakers warning they are ready to increase the pressure on leading Russian business figures and the country’s wider economy if Putin embarks on a full invasion of Ukraine.

Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, on Wednesday stressed that she did not consider that Russia had yet engaged in a “military invasion” but that it was guilty of a serious breach of international law. However, she added: “If there is any further military action against Ukraine there will be a massive and robust second package that is coming.”

She told CNN: “Russia will have to pay a price and it is President Putin who will have to explain to his people why he is putting this enormous price on them.”

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, the Kremlin-funded English language TV channel that broadcasts outside Russia, is on the sanctions list for having “promoted a positive attitude to . . . the actions of separatists in Donbas”. Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent and influential Russian TV news anchor, and Maria Zakharova, foreign ministry spokeswoman, will also be hit with sanctions.

The EU’s foreign policy arm warned this week of a wave of Russian state-backed propaganda targeting the bloc.

The EU sanctions will also apply to three banks with operations in the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist-held territories — VEB, Promsvyazbank and Bank Rossiya, according to the list.

While VTB Bank, Russia’s second-largest by assets, was not included on the list of lenders to be put under sanctions, its president, Andrei Kostin, and deputy president, Denis Bortnikov, were on the list of individuals to be placed under them. Bortnikov’s father is the head of Russia’s FSB spy service.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is already in the EU’s Libya-related sanctions for his alleged links to the mercenary Wagner group, is included in the new list — alongside his mother and wife — for his business links to Crimea and the occupied areas of eastern Ukraine.

“The EU’s willingness to target Putin’s inner circle with travel bans and asset freezes, as well as initiate sanctions against Russian sovereign debt is significant,” said Emre Peker, Europe director at Eurasia Group.

Janis Emmanouilidis of the European Policy Centre said: “It is important that the EU27 have agreed on a set of sanctions. However, the scale of what has been decided will not be enough to actually put pressure on President Putin . . . in case of an escalation of the conflict, the union will have to agree to further scale up the coercive measures.”

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2022-02-23 18:24:31Z
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Friendless Putin has gone full tonto on Ukraine, Ben Wallace says - The Times

Ben Wallace says President Putin has “gone full tonto” over Ukraine as he told soldiers to be prepared for a “busy” period serving in the British Army.

The defence secretary, who was in the Scots Guards in the 1990s and reads Russian history books in his spare time, said his former unit had “kicked the backside” of a former Russian leader in the 1800s and “can always do it again”.

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He pointed to a painting of Tsar Nicholas I while at London District, the main London headquarters for British Army units, announcing he would waive visa fees for overseas soldiers who served in the military for at least six years.

Wallace told Commonwealth soldiers who would be affected by the changes: “It’s going to be

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2022-02-23 16:30:00Z
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Who are the three Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the UK? - The Times

Boris Rotenberg
Boris Rotenberg and his brother Arkady have been friends with Vladimir Putin since childhood. The three of them attended judo training together in St Petersburg, and to this day are known still to spar.

Rotenberg’s son, also called Boris, 40, studied for a master’s degree in London at the European Business School. He holds British citizenship and is believed to own £3.3 million of property in Belgravia.

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Rotenberg, 65, is a major shareholder of SMP Bank, which he founded in 2001 with Arkady. In the same year, they became partners in Gazprom, the state-owned oil company linked to the Nord Stream pipelines. The brothers and the bank were the target of US sanctions in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, for providing financial

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2022-02-22 17:30:00Z
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Ahmaud Arbery: White trio guilty of hate crimes in killing of black man while he was out running - Sky News

A trio of white men have been found guilty of hate crimes after they murdered Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, while he was out on a run.

Greg and Travis McMichael, and their neighbour William "Roddie" Bryan, have already been convicted of the murder of Mr Arbery and sentenced to life in prison.

The trio had denied federal hate crime charges but were convicted of violating Mr Arbery's civil rights and targeting him because he was black.

Image: Travis McMichael. Pic: AP

The court heard the killing was motivated by "pent-up racial anger".

Mr Arbery, 25, was pursued and cornered by Travis McMichael, 35; his father and former police officer Greg, 66, and their neighbour Bryan, 52, on 23 February 2020 in Satilla Shores just outside the city of Brunswick, Georgia.

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Mr Arbery had been out on a run, according to prosecutors, while the chasers were driving pickup trucks.

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He was then shot by Travis McMichael.

Following the murder conviction last year, the McMichaels were told they would spend the rest of their lives in prison, but Judge Timothy Walmsley ruled that Bryan could seek parole after at least 30 years.

The hate crimes conviction also carries a sentence of up to life in prison.

Image: Greg McMichael

They were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels were also convicted on federal weapons charges.

Following the convictions, Mr Arbery's mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said: "Ahmaud will continue to rest in peace but he will now begin to rest in power."

During the hate crimes trial, the jury were shown around two dozen messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan used racist slurs and made derogatory comments about black people.

Image: William 'Roddie' Bryan. Pic: AP

The defence argued the trio did not kill Mr Arbery because of his race, but acted on the earnest, but mistaken suspicion that he was committing crimes in the neighbourhood.

The jury, consisting of eight white people, three black people, and one Hispanic person, started deliberations on Monday and had a verdict by Tuesday morning.

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2022-02-22 17:03:45Z
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Moscow claims it killed five Ukrainian troops who crossed into Russia - Financial Times

Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian troops into Ukraine after recognising two Moscow-backed separatist regions, hobbling the prospects of a diplomatic solution to the crisis as he put Russia on a war footing.

Putin directed Russia’s military into rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas border area on a “peacekeeping” operation, after he signed decrees pronouncing their independence on Monday.

The troops look set to remain there indefinitely under draft agreements published by the Kremlin under which Russia would defend the separatist states’ borders.

Russia’s president made the decision after an angry televised speech in which he cast doubts over Ukraine’s statehood and accused the west of using the country as a tool to destroy Russia.

Putin, who devoted long portions of his speech to his version of Ukraine’s modern history, vowed to “punish” those he accused of massacring Russians in Odesa in 2014. He also made clear that his grievances with Kyiv stretched to the country’s existence in its current form.

“You want de-communisation?” he asked, in reference to Ukraine’s efforts to move beyond its Soviet past and Russia’s influence. “That suits us fine. But don’t stop halfway. We’re ready to show Ukraine what real de-communisation means for it.”

The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics were formally recognised at a signing ceremony in the Kremlin after Putin warned that Russia would hold Ukraine responsible for any “ensuing bloodshed” in the region.

Russia previously deployed its troops to the Donbas in 2014-2015, but hitherto denied, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that it was a party to the conflict there.

Western powers worry that the Russian troops could help create a pretext for Moscow to attack Ukrainian forces. Putin repeated unsupported allegations that Ukraine has stepped up an artillery and “terrorist” campaign against the separatists, which Kyiv and its western allies say was laying ground for a “false flag” operation.

The move to recognise the breakaway regions sparked immediate international condemnation.

The White House said that Joe Biden, US president, would issue an executive order banning new investment, trade and financing by US entities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Jen Psaki, White House press secretary, said the order would also allow the US to place sanctions on people operating in the two areas.

“We will also soon announce additional measures related to today’s blatant violation of Russia’s international commitments,” said Psaki, who stressed that the measures were separate from the severe sanctions that the US had threatened to impose on Russia if the country further invaded Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Olaf Scholz said the German chancellor “condemned” the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, adding that the move was “completely at odds with the Minsk agreement on a peaceful solution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine”.

After a call between Biden, Scholz and Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, the chancellor’s spokesman said: “All three agreed that this unilateral step by Russia is a clear breach of the Minsk agreement. Germany, France and the US strongly condemn the Russian president’s decision. This step will not go unanswered.”

A French official said that “proportional, targeted sanctions” would be discussed in Brussels: “Russia must pay the price of its decisions this evening. All this has a cost and we want to proportion this cost to the decisions taken by President Putin.”

Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, and Charles Michel, European Council president, said the step was “a blatant violation of international law” and said the EU would “react with sanctions against those involved in this illegal act”.

Britain will announce sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, Liz Truss, foreign secretary, announced, in immediate reprisals against Moscow’s “breach of international law and attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Putin’s speech followed a meeting with his national security council where Russian officials lined up to denounce Ukraine and the US, disparage the stalled Minsk peace process and urge Putin to recognise the separatists.

It also followed Moscow’s claim that it had destroyed two Ukrainian military vehicles that strayed into its territory, killing five people. The unconfirmed incident would be the first direct clash with Ukrainian forces since Moscow mobilised 190,000 troops on its border.

Markets responded with alarm. Russia’s Moex stock index closed down 10.5 per cent, its steepest fall since Russia seized Crimea in 2014. Brent crude, the oil benchmark, rose 4 per cent to $97.30 a barrel.

Daily reports of clashes in eastern Ukraine have been an ominous backdrop to diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis. Putin and Biden have accepted “the principle” of a summit to ease tensions, the White House said, but the Kremlin has so far played down expectations that it would actually go ahead.

Russia-backed separatists in Donbas have accused Kyiv of launching an offensive to retake the breakaway territories, where more than 14,000 people have died since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Additional reporting by Guy Chazan in Berlin and Derek Brower in New York

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2022-02-21 23:13:34Z
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Mount Etna erupts sending six mile ash cloud into the sky and closing airport - Metro.co.uk

A fresh eruption of Mount Etna sent a huge ash cloud into the sky on Monday (Picture: Splash / Getty)

A fresh eruption of Mount Etna has sent a huge six mile long ash cloud into the sky above Catania in Sicily.

Dramatic pictures showed the ancient port city dwarfed by the a menacing cloud spewing out of the volcano, one of the most active in the world.

Vincenzo Bellini, Sicily’s second largest international airport, was temporarily closed at lunchtime on Monday due to the eruption, with inbound flights diverted to Palermo.

The ash cloud rose 6.2 miles into the air above a crator on the south-east of the volcano, the INGV National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology said on Twitter.

The airport of Catania was temporarily closed (Picture: Getty Images Europe)

The huge cloud could be seen for miles around (Picture: AP)

A ‘lava fountain’ was seen spewing from the South-East crater (Picture: SplashNews)

Mount Etna is Europe’s highest and most active volcano (Picture: Reuters)

Ash covered roads, balconies and roofs of towns nearby, Italy’s civil protection agency said.

INGV said it had recorded a gradual rise in volcanic-seismic tremor – induced by escaping gases – which could be a sign that Etna is heading towards another spectacular burst of fiery lava fountaining, known as paroxysmal activity.

At 3,324 metres (nearly 11,000 feet), Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and has erupted frequently in the past 500,000 years.

The latest eruption was so strong it could be seen from space with the dust cloud being picked up on satellite images from the International Space Station.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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2022-02-21 14:19:00Z
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