The United Kingdom Wednesday imposed another round of sanctions against Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine, affecting the banking sector and suspending imports of Russian energy until the end of the year.
“Our latest wave of measures means an end to British imports of Russian energy, and more sanctions on businessmen, to dismantle (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war machine,” said a statement from the head of British diplomacy, Liz Truss.
“With our allies, we show the Russian elite that they cannot wash their hands of atrocities committed on Putin’s orders,” Truss said.
The new measures announced provide for a “complete freeze of assets” of the leading Russian bank Sberbank and the end of imports of Russian coal.
The British government had already indicated that it wanted to stop buying Russian oil this year. It specifies that it intends to “put an end to gas imports as soon as possible.”
The new battery of sanctions is aimed at “strategic industries and public companies”, prohibiting imports of iron and steel.
The British government is also targeting eight businessmen whose assets in the United Kingdom are frozen and who are prohibited from entering British territory.
They are billionaire Leonid Mikhelson, who runs the Novatek gas conglomerate; as well as the directors of the Kamaz truck production company, Sergei Kogogin; from Gazprombank, Andrei Akimov; from the GazpromNeft oil tanker, Alexander Diukov; and the diamond giant Alrosa, Sergei Ivanov.
Boris Rotenberg, the son of an oligarch of the same name who is very close to Putin, is also included in the list.
According to the British government, with these measures 82 oligarchs that “weigh” 170,000 million pounds (200,000 million euros or 218,000 million dollars) are now sanctioned, in addition to 18 banks that represent 940,000 million pounds (1.12 billion euros) of assets.