Johnson: ‘Blood-stained’ Putin ‘hobbled’

Boris Johnson is hitting Russia with the “largest and most severe” package of sanctions it has ever faced to punish “bloodstained aggressor” Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine.

The prime minister extended punitive measures yesterday to hit five further oligarchs, including the Russian president’s former son-inlaw, and to tackle more than 100 businesses and individuals.

Mr Johnson said he was sanctioning “all the major manufacturers that support Putin’s war machine”, will imminently ban Aeroflot from touching down planes in the UK and freeze the assets of all major Russian banks, including immediately against VTB.

His second barrage of measures is designed to “hobble the Russian economy” and punish Moscow’s ally Belarus.

“Putin will stand condemned in the eyes of the world and of history. He will never be able to cleanse the blood of Ukraine from his hands,” the prime minister told the Commons.

“Now we see him for what he is – a bloodstained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest.”

Mr Johnson said the measures are “the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever seen”, but vowed to go further.

“We will continue on a remorseless mission to

squeeze Russia from the global economy piece by piece, day by day and week by week,” he told MPs.

He detailed the measures after speaking to G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, to discuss how to tackle the war unfolding in Europe as they work to act in tandem.

The five new oligarchs being hit include Kirill Shamalov, Russia’s youngest billionaire who was formerly married to Mr Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova.

In a sombre address to the nation at midday, the prime minister said the world cannot stand by and allow the freedom of Ukraine to be “snuffed out” amid the Kremlin’s attack on “democracy and freedom in eastern Europe and around the world”.

He said a “vast invasion” has been launched by land, sea and air and “innumerable missiles and bombs have been raining down on an entirely innocent population”.

Mr Johnson was woken with news of the invasion in the night and spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shortly after 4am.

The PM warned of the prospect of “grim” months to come, before echoing an earlier address from Mr Zelensky in speaking directly to the Russian public.

“I cannot believe this is being done in your name or that you really want the pariah status it will bring to the Putin regime,” the prime minister said.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss rebuked Russia’s ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, during an angry meeting a source said she kicked him out of after labelling Russia an “international pariah”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for the “hardest possible sanctions” against Mr Putin’s “bandit rule” and renewed calls for Russian banks to be cut out of Swift, a type of international

bank sort code, as the prime minister said the move is not off the table.

At Holyrood, Nicola Sturgeon said Putin must “feel the wrath of the democratic world”.

The first minister condemned “in the strongest possible terms, the unprovoked, imperialist aggression of Vladimir Putin”, having earlier tweeted that the Russian president must face the “severest consequences” for his “unprovoked aggression”.

Boris Johnson.