© Reuters. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a news conference to outline the government’s novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic plan, at Downing Street in London, Britain, February 21, 2022. Tolga Akmen / Pool via REUTERS
By Kylie MacLellan and William James
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain on Tuesday imposed sanctions on five Russian banks and three high-net-worth individuals including Gennady Timchenko after President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to the country. two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament: “This is the first wave, the first wave of what we are going to do.
“Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen and those involved will be banned from traveling here,” Johnson said of the individuals sanctioned.
Timchenko is a close ally of Russian President Putin. The sanctioned banks are Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and Black Sea Bank, Johnson said.
“We must now mentally prepare ourselves for the next possible stages of Putin’s plan,” Johnson told the House of Commons. “Putin is creating an excuse for a full-scale attack.”
Britain has threatened to cut off Russian companies’ access to US dollars and pounds, prevent them from raising capital in London and expose what Johnson calls a “Russian doll” of assets and company ownership. .
Russia’s once-mighty superpower economy is now smaller than Italy’s based on IMF data, with a nominal GDP of about $1.7 trillion.
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