The United Kingdom is going to introduce a sanctions bill next week targeting a “broad range” of Russian economic activities, as part of its efforts to deter Moscow of an invasion against Ukraineaffirmed on Sunday the head of diplomacy.
(Read here: UK will offer NATO increased ‘military deployment’ in Europe)
Foreign Minister Liz Truss said the bill expands London’s battery of sanctions to cover “any business of interest to the Kremlin and the Russian regime.”
“There is going to be nowhere to hide for Putin’s oligarchs,” Truss told the network. SkyNews.
“We are going to announce at the end of this week improved sanctions legislation so that we can hit a wide range of Russian interests of importance to the Kremlin,” the official explained.
Truss said that this project wants “no one to think that they are immune from these sanctions.”
Relations between Russia and the West are under strain not seen since the Cold War after Moscow deployed tens of thousands of troops to the border with
Ukraine.
This mobilization generates fears that Moscow is preparing an invasion, which has led NATO and its members to consider an increase in their contingent in the area. For its part, Moscow denies that it is preparing an invasion and demands written guarantees on security matters, including a veto on Ukraine’s entry into NATO.
(You may be interested: Not only Russia is testing Joe Biden)
Russia says it wants good relations with the US
Russia assured this Sunday that it wants to have relations based on “mutual respect” with the United States and denied that it is threatening Ukraine, despite having concentrated troops on the border, and pointed out that it needs concrete guarantees for its security.
Although tensions have been at a height for months between Moscow and Western countries over Ukraine, Russian authorities stressed on Sunday that they intend to follow the diplomatic path.
“We want good, equitable, mutually respectful relations with the United States, as with all countries in the world,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russia’s Channel 1.
(In other news: Russia-Ukraine: How will we know if a war has started?)
However, he insisted that Moscow does not want to be in a position where its security “is infringed on a daily basis”, as it would be if Ukraine were to join NATO, an eventuality that Russia sees as an existential threat.
According to Lavrov, Moscow will continue to seek “guarantees, which are not political commitments on paper, but also legally binding guarantees” that take into account the “legitimate interests” of Russia.
In addition, he specified that the Russian government will soon send to the countries of NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) “an official request that urges them to specify how they plan to implement their commitment not to reinforce their safety to the detriment of the safety of others”.
Previously, Lavrov had already insisted that Russia does not want “war” and prefers to opt for the “diplomatic path”. In any case, Russia warned that her requests are not heeded, she would order retaliation, but did not specify what kind.
AFP
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