Boris Johnson will “imminently” impose direct sanctions on president Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in response to the Ukraine invasion, No 10 has announced.
It comes after the UK government imposed a series of sanctions of Russian banks, airlines and oligarchs close to the Kremlin on Thursday in response to military offensive in the Eastern European country by land, air and sea.
After a call with Nato leaders to discuss the latest situation, a Downing Street spokesperson said the prime minister told members that Putin was “engaging in a revanchist mission to over-turn post-Cold War order”.
“He warned the group that the Russian President’s ambitions might not stop there and that this was a Euro-Atlantic crisis with global consequences,” they said.
Stepping up UK sanctions, the spokesperson said Mr Johnson would “introduce sanctions against President Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov imminently”.
EU states agreed to freeze any European assets of Putin and Lavrov on Friday, after Ukraine’s leader pleaded for more forceful action to punish back against Russia’s invasion.
“It’s a politically important signal,” a senior EU diplomat told Reuters, referring to the decision to target the Kremlin’s senior figures.
One EU official said that the latest round of sanctions would be followed by another that may target “many more” Russian oligarchs. “We are moving as quickly as we can,” the official said.
The move against Putin and Lavrov came after envoys of the EU’s 27 member states thrashed out the details of a second wave of sanction measures against Russian individuals and entities on Thursday night.
The prime minister also urged leaders on the call on Friday to take “immediate action” to ban Russia from the global banking system SWIFT, in order to “inflict maximum pain on president Putin and his regime”.
Speaking to The Independent, Bill Browder, a high-profile anti-corruption campaigner behind the Magnitsky Act, which allows measures to be taken against Russian human rights abusers, said the denial of access to SWIFT would be “the one thing that would really change Putin’s calculus”.
The No 10 spokesperson added the prime minister told Nato leaders “the world must make certain President Putin would fail in this act of aggression”.
They also insisted Ukraine was “showing strong resistance” against the Russian military attempting to seize cities on the second day of Putin’s invasion.
Western officials are increasingly confident that the Russian mission is falling behind on its timetable for the invasion, with Putin’s forces still confined largely to rural areas while Ukraine concentrates its troops in urban areas in order to mount a determined defence against the expected assault.
The UK’s chief of defence intelligence Lt-Gen James Hockenhull told reporters on Friday: “Russian forces continue to advance on two axes towards Kyiv. Their objective is to encircle the capital, to secure control of the population and change the regime.
“Russia continues to conduct strikes across Ukraine. Overnight, Russia launched a concerted series of strikes on targets in Kyiv. Rocket launchers have been employed in Chernihiv and Kharkiv.
“Ukrainian armed forces continue to offer strong resistance focusing on the defence of key cities throughout Ukraine.”
This map details the progress of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during Thursday and Friday
