British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Russia would be facing the “largest” set of economic sanctions ever seen in response to the full-scale invasion launched against Ukraine.
Johnson labeled Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “blood-stained aggressor,” saying that he will “never be able to cleanse the blood of Ukraine from his hands” while announcing a long list of sanctions aimed at freezing assets from Russian banks and ending the use of the SWIFT international payment system, the Guardian reported.
“The U.K. is announcing the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever seen,” Johnson said.
NO MORE GAMES WITH RUSSIA, FC ZENIT SHOULD BE THROWN OUT OF EUROPA
“With new financial measures, we’re taking new powers to target Russian finance in addition to the banks we’ve already sanctioned this week, today,” he continued. “In concept with the United States, we are imposing a full asset freeze on VBT.” VBT is Russia’s second-largest bank.
These sanctions will render Western powers “able to totally exclude Russian banks from the U.K. financial system,” Johnson asserted, noting the U.S. was adopting a similar approach.
“With around half of Russia’s trade currently in U.S. dollars and sterling, I’m pleased to tell the House that the United States is taking similar measures,” Johnson added. “We will limit the amount of money that Russian nationals will be able to deposit in their U.K. bank accounts, and sanctions will also be applied to Belarus, for its role in the assault on Ukraine.”
WATCH LIVE: An update to the @HouseOfCommons on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. https://t.co/Myfv8BzhIW
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 24, 2022
President Joe Biden confirmed the U.S. was taking action against Russia.
“We’ve now sanctioned Russian banks that together hold around $1 trillion in assets. We’ve cut off Russia’s largest bank, a bank that holds more than one-third of Russia’s banking assets by itself. We’ve cut it off from the U.S. financial system,” Biden said during a press conference Thursday afternoon. “And today, we’re also blocking four more major banks. That means every asset they have in America will be frozen. This includes VTB, the second-largest bank in Russia, which has $250 billion in assets.”
Russia unleashed a full-scale invasion on Ukraine by land, air, and sea in the early hours of Thursday local time, after Putin announced a “special military operation.” Hours after Russian forces began to invade, explosions were heard across the country, including the capital city of Kyiv.
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The invasion has been met with widespread pushback, including from some Russians. More than 150 top-ranking Russian officials wrote a letter to Putin condemning the invasion of Ukraine, warning that there would be “catastrophic consequences” as a result.
The Russians have fired over 100 missiles and sent 75 bombers on the first day of their invasion, according to U.S. officials. Over 57 Ukrainians have died so far.
