PUTIN PRESSURE ON
Britain and US fire off sanctions in response to Russian meddling and fears of war in Ukraine
BRITAIN and the US launched sanction attacks against Russian espionage and “reckless” meddling yesterday amid fears of war in Ukraine.
America piled into Moscow with financial transaction bans, expelled 10 more Russian officials and slammed Putin’s regime for putting bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.
They even hit out at the Russian regime for its treatment of jailed dissident politician Alexei Navalny, who has been poisoned with Novichok.
Moscow warned it would react to sanctions and refused to back down on its aggressive posture towards Ukraine and the wider region.
Britain and the US blasted Russia’s SVR foreign spy agency for its pattern of “malign behaviour”.
It came as more Russian troops amassed at Ukraine’s border, Moscow’s warships conducted live firing in the Baltic and land forces practised full-on attacks.
America stopped two warships from approaching the Black Sea to avoid direct tension with Putin’s navy.
But instead, the UK and US jointly called out Russia, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken announcing measures to attack Moscow’s inner circle. More sanctions were slapped on Russia, banning US financial service companies from transacting in the primary market with ruble or non-ruble bonds.
The gamble is aimed at further smashing Russia’s economy and discrediting Putin, whose domestic ratings are falling fast.
US president Joe Biden signed off an executive order green-lighting measures to sanction Russian companies with links to spy agencies.
America also noted claims Russian spies had offered terrorists in Afghanistan £80,000-atime bounties for killing US or allied forces.
Blinken said: “These actions are intended to hold Russia to account for its reckless actions. We will act firmly in response to Russian actions that cause harm to us or our allies and partners.”
America also directly accused Moscow of being behind the wide-ranging 2020 SolarWinds cyber hack in which Putin’s spooks hacked into at least nine government agency systems.
UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab said: “We see what Russia is doing to undermine our democracies.
“The UK and US are calling out Russia’s malicious behaviour to enable our international partners and businesses at home to better defend and prepare themselves against this kind of action.”