UK imposes providers sanctions on Russia over ‘illegal annexation’ of 4 areas of Ukraine

The UK authorities on Friday imposed new providers and items export bans on Russia in response to what it termed the “illegal annexation” of 4 areas of Ukraine after “sham referendums”.

The providers sanctions are designed to focus on weak sectors of the Russian economic system, together with IT consultancy, architectural providers, engineering providers and transactional authorized advisory providers for sure business exercise.

UK Foreign Secretary additionally instructed the Russian Ambassador, Andrey Kelin, be summoned to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), to protest within the “strongest terms” towards the Russian motion in Ukrainian areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

“The UK utterly condemns [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s announcement of the illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory. We will never recognise the results of these sham referendums or any annexation of Ukrainian territory,” mentioned UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

“The Russian regime must be held to account for this abhorrent violation of international law. That’s why we are working with our international partners to ramp up the economic pressure through new targeted services bans. What happens in Ukraine matters to us all, and the UK will do everything possible to assist their fight for freedom,” he mentioned.

According to the FCDO, the UK is transferring in lockstep with worldwide companions and as Russia imports 67 per cent of its providers from the sanctioning international locations, it would impression entry to IT providers, promoting providers, transactional authorized advisory providers and auditing providers.

The UK has additionally sanctioned Elvira Nabiullina, the Governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

The FCDO mentioned that in her position, Nabiullina has been instrumental in steering the Russian economic system by means of the Russian regime’s unlawful battle towards Ukraine and lengthening the ruble into the Ukrainian territories which can be quickly managed by Russia.

The governor is now personally topic to an asset freeze and journey ban. “Russia is highly dependent on Western countries for legal services with 85 per cent of all legal services being imported from G7 countries given London is an international legal centre, the UK accounts for 59 per cent of these imports,” the FCDO mentioned.

“The new legal advisory measures will cover certain commercial and transactional services and hamper Russia’s businesses’ ability to operate internationally. IT consultancy services will also be banned, including designing IT systems and software applications. Alongside the UK’s previous ban on quantum computing exports and computing services, and with over 1,70,000 IT specialists fleeing Russia since the invasion began, these measures will further erode Russia’s ability to maintain technological development with the rest of the world,” it mentioned.

The export of just about 700 items from the UK to Russia are additionally being banned. The record consists of a whole bunch of products which can be important for manufacturing in Russia’s manufacturing sector, with imports from the UK totalling over GBP 200 million final 12 months. In complete, GBP 19 billion value of UK-Russia commerce has been wholly or partially sanctioned, based mostly on official 2021 commerce flows.

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