UK to personally sanction Putin and foreign minister ‘imminently’ – Johnson

The UK will “imminently” level personal sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, Boris Johnson has announced.

The Prime Minister told Nato leaders in a virtual meeting on Friday that the UK would echo measures announced by the EU to target the Russian leader.

Referring to Mr Putin’s wish to recover territory which previously fell under the USSR, he said Russia was “engaging in a revanchist mission to overturn the post-Cold War order”.

Mr Johnson told allies “the UK would introduce sanctions against President Putin and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov imminently, on top of the sanctions package the UK announced yesterday”, according to a No 10 spokesman.

“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,” he said.

The Prime Minister also used the meeting to urge “immediate action” over the banning of Russia from the Swift payment system to “inflict maximum pain” on the Kremlin.

The move to sanction President Putin and Mr Lavrov comes after the European Union announced it was considering a similar move against the two men as it set out its latest round of measures in concert with the US and the UK.

The Government has faced criticism that it has still not gone far enough despite measures to hit five further oligarchs, and targeting more than 100 businesses and individuals.

With Russian forces continuing to advance towards Kyiv, beleaguered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said sanctions had so far done nothing to deter the Russian onslaught.

Meanwhile Western officials have warned that the Russians could resort to thermobaric weapons – used to generate powerful, high-temperature explosions – if the Ukrainian military resistance continues to hold up their assault.

Despite beginning the attack on Thursday, the Russian forces have yet to take any of the main population centres and officials believe they failed to achieve most of their day one objectives for the invasion.

One official noted that the Russians were known to have thermobaric weapons in their armoury and that they had used them in previous conflicts.

“My fear would be that if they don’t meet their timescale and objectives, they would be indiscriminate in their use of violence,” the official said.