UK promises to hit Russia ‘very hard’ with sanctions

Britain will immediately impose hard economic sanctions on Russia after President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday.

“We will immediately institute a package of economic sanctions,” Johnson told reporters.

The sanctions, he said, would be “targeted not just at entities in Donbass and Luhansk and Donetsk, but in Russia itself — targeting Russian economic interests as hard as we can.”

Putin will find he has “gravely miscalculated” if Russia invades Ukraine, Johnson said, adding that Moscow appeared to be bent on a full scale invasion.

Johnson chaired a meeting of Britain’s national emergency security committee early on Tuesday.

“I think that the tragedy of the present situation is that President Putin has surrounded himself with like-minded advisers who tell him that Ukraine is not a proper country. And I think that he is going to find that he has gravely miscalculated,” Johnson told reporters after the meeting.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles later said NATO and European Union countries could not allow the violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

“Russia must know the firmness of EU and NATO is absolute and total,” she said in an interview to radio station COPE.

“We cannot allow a violation of international law nor the attack to Ukraine’s territorial integrity, which is what has happened, without a doubt.”

Spain and its partners would still give a chance to diplomacy, she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine after recognizing them as independent on Monday, accelerating a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war.

A Reuters witness saw tanks and other military hardware moving through the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk after Putin formally recognized the breakaway regions and ordered the deployment of Russian forces to “keep the peace.”

Britain has threatened to cut off Russian companies’ access to US dollars and British pounds, blocking them from raising capital in London and to expose what Johnson calls the “Russian doll” of property and company ownership.

Britain has not yet spelled out who would fall under the sanctions, but has pledged that there would be nowhere for Russian oligarchs to hide. Johnson has said targets could include Russian banks.