Britain is targeting Russian officials in a new round of sanctions

• Russia’s justice minister and deputy minister, plus two nephews of Alisher Usmanov, are among the 42 new sanctions.
• Britain sanctioned Russian regional governors for supporting Donetsk and Luhansk to aid the Russian occupation and land grab in Ukraine.
• Britain claims to have sanctioned around 1,100 individuals and over 100 entities in Russia.

Britain announced on Tuesday that it had sanctioned Kremlin-appointed officials in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, as well as 29 regional governors across Russia, in retaliation to Moscow’s invasion of the former Soviet republic.

Russia’s minister and deputy minister of justice, as well as two nephews of Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, were among the 42 new designations added to Britain’s Russia sanctions.

“We will continue to impose harsh sanctions on those who are trying to legitimise Putin’s illegal invasion until Ukraine prevails,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who is the frontrunner to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister, said in a statement.

The Russian-imposed Prime Minister and First Deputy Chairman of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Vitaly Khotsenko and Vladislav Kuznetsov are now subject to travel bans and asset freezes, according to the British Foreign Office.

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“Khotsenko and Kuznetsov have been sent to implement Russia’s policies across the invaded region, supporting Putin’s plans to illegally annex more of Ukraine and use sham referendums to falsely legitimise their occupation,” it said.

Britain also sanctioned Russian regional governors for assisting the Russian occupation and attempting to seize land from Ukraine by providing funding to Donetsk and Luhansk.

Since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow describes as a “special military operation,” Johnson has pushed to spearhead Western sanctions against Russia.

Britain claims to have sanctioned around 1,100 individuals and over 100 entities in Russia, ranging from high-profile businesses and companies to significant politicians.

In conjunction with the European Union, the British government stated it was also targeting two groups of Syrian individuals, one of whom it accused of recruiting Syrians to fight in Ukraine and the other of supporting the “repressive Syrian regime.”

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