The UK will provide further military support to Ukraine and is ready to escalate its sanctions on Russia, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament.
At Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Feb. 23, Johnson said, “In light of the increasingly threatening behaviour from Russia, and in line with our previous support, the UK will shortly be providing a further package of military support to Ukraine.”
The package will include lethal aid in the form of defensive weapons and non-lethal aid, he said.
The UK has already sent anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainian military to help counter the threat posed by Russian forces ringed around the country’s borders.
Putin announced on Feb. 21 that Russia will regard two areas in Ukraine’s Donbas region as independent, and signed a decree authorising Russian troops to be sent into the area for so-called “peacekeeping operations.”
In response, Johnson announced on Feb. 22 that Britain had imposed sanctions on five Russian banks and three Russian oligarchs.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pressed Johnson to impose more sanctions on Russia because there had “already been an invasion.”
Starmer said Labour would offer its “full support” if the prime minister brings forward his full package of sanctions including excluding Russians from financial mechanisms like SWIFT and a ban on trading in Russian sovereign debt.
Johnson replied that the UK government still hopes Putin will “see sense” and deescalate. But he said the UK is “ready very rapidly to escalate our sanctions.”
He said that “any Russian entity, any Russian individual,” and members of the Russian Parliament could now be targeted by UK sanctions if needed.
Starmer also said the UK must do more to “defeat Putin’s campaign of lies and disinformation.”
He said the broadcaster Russia Today is Putin’s “personal propaganda tool” and he could see “no reason why it should be allowed to continue to broadcast in this country.”
Johnson said Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries had already asked Britain’s broadcasting regulator Ofcom to review that matter.
Earlier, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the BBC that Britain will make it “as painful as possible” for Russia if Putin unleashes an all-out attack on Ukraine.
Truss said the Russian leader appears to be “hell-bent” on invading his neighbour, including potentially an assault on the capital Kyiv.
She said the UK government has further measures “in the locker” which it could activate, including sanctions on Russian parliamentarians who supported the move to recognise the independence of the breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
