The United Kingdom on Monday sanctioned a series of Russian personalities, including a minister and a well-known journalist, accused of having played a role in the “forced deportation of Ukrainian children” by Moscow.
The new measures announced by London before an intervention by the head of British diplomacy James Cleverly at the UN Security Council target a total of 14 people and entities in reaction to “Russia’s attempts to destroy the Ukrainian national identity”, a said the British government in a press release.
Among these targets, stricken with a ban on residence in the United Kingdom and asset freezes, 11 of them are more specifically targeted for the “deportations of children” of which the Russian authorities are accused, who deny.
Are targeted in particular the Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov and the journalist Anton Krassovski, formerly a figure close to the liberal opposition and activist for LGBT + rights who became pro-power. The latter had called last year on the antenna of the Russian channel RT to “burn” Ukrainian children, which earned him his dismissal.
Russia is accused of transferring thousands of children to areas under its control in Ukraine as well as to its own territory. Vladimir Putin is personally accused by the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, of war crimes for the “illegal deportation” of thousands of Ukrainian children during the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Charges which are rejected by Moscow.
According to London, at least 19,000 Ukrainian children are affected.
“With his terrifying program of forced deportation of children and the hateful propaganda spread by his lackeys, we see Putin’s true intention: to wipe Ukraine off the map,” Cleverly said in the statement.
The Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyoubimova is also sanctioned by London, more generally for her “support for the anti-Ukrainian policies of the Russian state”.
In total, the UK has sanctioned over 1,600 individuals and entities in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This article is originally published on journaldemontreal.com
