The United Kingdom has imposed new sanctions on Russia to “cut off crucial industries that feed Putin’s war machine”. Six banks and numerous businessmen are also affected. The British now have more than a thousand individuals and companies on their sanctions list.

 

London said that Russian banks are now affected with £500 billion in assets and oligarchs and their relatives for more than 150 billion.

The sanctions target the mainstays of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, such as defence companies, the railways and Wagner mercenary agency, which is alleged to have been ordered to assassinate the Ukrainian president. The leading drone maker Kronshtadt and the largest diamond producer globally, Alrosa, have also been added to the list.

Oil billionaire Eugene Shvidler, Sberbank CEO Herman Gref and the stepdaughter of Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov have lost access to their British bank accounts and are no longer welcome in the UK. So is “collaborator” Galina Danilchenko, who installed Moscow as mayor of the Ukrainian city of Melitopol.

“The oligarchs, corporations, and hired criminals are complicit in the murder of innocent civilians. ” Secretary of State Liz Truss said they are right to pay the price. She pledges to work with allies to tighten “thumbs up” to ensure that President Vladimir Putin fails in Ukraine.