Keir Starmer’s Labour government has just imposed 56 new sanctions on Russia—the largest fresh package of sanctions in over a year.
David Lammy, Britain’s Trump-hating foreign secretary, said the measures would help to “confront the Kremlin’s corrosive foreign policy and smash the illicit networks it relies on.” But critics have dismissed the measures as rhetorical, saying they won’t make any meaningful difference in Moscow.
British former diplomat Ian Proud bashed the sanctions as a “childish tantrum” by Lammy which “will have zero impact.”
The entities [targeted] have no assets in the UK to freeze, [and] the people will almost certainly never have visited Britain.
Among those sanctioned are ten such entities in China believed to be supplying equipment to the Russian military for its war in Ukraine, and Kremlin-controlled mercenary groups in Africa. Individuals have also been sanctioned, including Denis Sergeev, who British police have charged for the March 2018 attempted murders of Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, southern England.
The Russian embassy to the UK responded in a predictably critical manner, describing the sanctions as “vague” and “based on flimsy grounds,” while designed purely for “grandstand[ing]” purposes.
Lammy’s announcement also prompted a slew of social media calls for sanctions to be placed on Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration, including from Labour MP Zarah Sultana, who urged the government to “do Israel now.”
