UK announces new wave of sanctions targeting Kremlin war chest
The UK has announced a fresh wave of sanctions targeting the Kremlin's war chest, "propagandists" and people accused of involvement in the torture of Ukrainian civilians.
Some 23 individuals and entities will be subject to asset freezes and travel bans, while eight ships linked to Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" will be subject to trade sanctions.
The measures are aimed at maintaining economic pressure on Moscow ahead of the bitter winter months, which in the years since its full-scale invasion began in 2022 have brought an escalation of strikes on Ukraine's power grid.
They also target seven people "for their role in the indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children, including those deported by the Russian authorities", and eight involved in the "arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian civilians", the Foreign Office said.
Some 995 Ukrainian children were taken from illegally occupied areas of the country like Donetsk or Luhansk People's Republic in 2022 and hundreds of others removed from other areas, a report by a UN body published in March found.
Russian authorities have failed to disclose the whereabouts of disappeared children to parents and kept them in a "coercive environment" amounting to a crime against humanity and a war crime, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded.
The latest wave of UK sanctions also targets people accused of spreading pro-Kremlin "disinformation" narratives including Mamuka Pipia, leader of the pro-Russian Georgian party Solidarity for Peace.
Vessels including three shadow fleet ships, two ships providing them with bunkering services and three Russian-owned ice-class ships have also been made subject to shipping sanctions in a bid to cut off funding for Moscow's war chest.
Moscow fired more than 3,100 jet-powered drones into Ukraine in September, outstripping its wartime record from August.
Minister for Europe Lord Wood of Anfield said: "We are targeting both the revenues that help sustain Russia's aggression and perpetrators of horrendous crimes against Ukrainian civilians, including children. The UK will not flinch in our support for Ukraine."
By Nina Lloyd, Press Association Political Correspondent
Press Association: News
source: PA
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