Britain will impose sanctions on companies and individuals with close ties to the Kremlin if Russia takes “further action” against Ukraine, a senior British official said today.
London’s threats to impose sanctions on Russian companies and businessmen linked to President Putin are worrying and such actions will boomerang on British companies, the Kremlin said.
His spokesman, Dmitry Peshkov, said the threat was an attack on Russian companies and that it was undermining the investment climate in Britain and fueling tensions in Europe.
During a press conference, Peshkov noted that Russia would respond to any such action in a way that was based on its interests.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, London has become the world’s leading center for a huge outflow of money from the former Soviet republics.
Opponents of President Vladimir Putin, who has amassed an army near Ukraine, have repeatedly called on the West to tighten its grip on the practice, but oligarchs and Russian officials continue to show off their wealth to the more luxurious Europeans.
“We are very clear that if Russia takes further action against Ukraine, then we will further tighten sanctions on these companies and individuals with the closest ties to the Kremlin,” British Undersecretary of the Treasury Simon Clark told Sky News. .
The United States, the European Union and Britain have warned Putin not to invade Ukraine.
Russia denies plans to attack Ukraine and demands security guarantees, including a commitment from NATO to never allow Kiev to join the Alliance.
Russian officials say the West is obsessed with Russophobia and has no right to teach Moscow how to behave after NATO extends eastward after the end of the Cold War.
The British government will pass new legislation this week to extend the scope of sanctions that may be imposed on Russia to try to prevent aggression against Ukraine, said Foreign Minister Liz Trass yesterday.
Britain has imposed sanctions on some 180 people and 48 entities since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
The sanctions list includes six people whom Britain claims belong to Putin’s inner circle: businessmen Yuri Kovalchuk, Arkady Rotenberg and Nikolai Samalov, former KGB officer Sergei Chemezov, Russian Secretary of State head of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov.
Sanctions allow Britain to freeze individuals’ assets and bar them from entering the United Kingdom.
These sanctions also prohibit any individual from trading in securities or money market instruments after 2014 with a maturity of more than 30 days, issued by Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Vnesheconombank (VEB), Rosselkhozbank, OPK Oboronprom , United Aircraft Corporation, Uralvagonzavod, Rosneft, Transneft or Gazprom Neft.
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