Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced Britain will “imminently” target Russian President Vladimir Putin and his foreign minister with personal sanctions, following the invasion of Ukraine.
The prime minister told NATO leaders in a virtual meeting on Friday that the UK would echo measures announced by the EU and later the United States to target the Russian leader.
Johnson said Russia was “engaging in a revanchist mission to overturn the post-Cold War order.”
Johnson told allies “the UK would introduce sanctions against President Putin and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov imminently, on top of the sanctions package the UK announced yesterday,” according to a No 10 spokesman.
Johnson also called for allies to ban Russia from the SWIFT payment system—a move which so far has been resisted by President Joe Biden and some other western allies.
The UK also announced the ban on Aeroflot flights landing in the UK would be extended to cover Russian private jets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said sanctions had so far done nothing to deter the Russian onslaught.
Fighting took place overnight on the streets of the suburbs in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Explosions have been reported in some parts of the city.
Zelensky posted a video from the capital on Saturday, declaring that his countrymen would not “lay down arms.”
British armed forces minister James Heappey said Saturday morning that Russians troops were not making the progress they had hoped for, with the main armoured columns still some way from the city.
He told BBC Breakfast that the defenders faced “days, weeks, months more” of heavy fighting.
Heappey disclosed that the Ministry of Defence was working on plans to support a resistance movement and a government in exile if Ukraine was finally overrun.
“That is a decision for the National Security Council to take but it is something that the Prime Minister has asked us in the Ministry of Defence to look at and plan for,” he told Sky News.
Britain has already sent 2,000 anti-tank missile launchers and Heappey said they were looking to get more weaponry to the country.
“We know what the Ukrainians want. We are doing our best to get it to them,” he said.
So far the fighting in the capital had been confined to “very isolated pockets of Russian special forces and paratroopers” with the main armoured columns “still some way off” he added.
Echoing statements from NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, Heappey was clear that the UK and NATO would not engage in any military action.
He said the alliance was deploying thousands more troops to the eastern member states—who fear they could be the next target of Russia—and would “do what it takes to protect and defend every ally and every inch of NATO territory.”
NATO has rejected calls to help mount a no-fly zone over Ukraine, citing fears that enforcement could result in engagement with Russian jets and trigger a Europe-wide war.
