UK introduces new sanctions in response to Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children

The British government imposed sanctions against 14 Russians given the attempts of the Russian authorities to destroy Ukrainian national identity, namely, 11 involved in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

This is stated in the press release of the UK government.

"In his chilling program of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see Putin's true intention – to wipe Ukraine from the map," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. "Today's sanctions hold those who prop up Putin's regime to account, including those who would see Ukraine destroyed, its national identity dissolved, and its future erased."

The new sanctions list includes 14 Russians, including 11 people involved in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. Among them are the commissioner for children's rights in the Moscow Oblast, Ksenia Mishonova, and the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation, Sergey Kravtsov.

These individuals played a role in the Russian deportation program aimed at destroying Ukrainian cultural and national identity. More than 19,000 Ukrainian children were forcibly deported to the Russian Federation or to the territory temporarily controlled by it, the statement stressed.

Many children are placed in re-education camps in the illegally occupied Crimea and on the Russian mainland, where they receive Russian-oriented academic, cultural, patriotic, and military education.

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, more than 1,600 individuals and legal entities have been subject to British sanctions, including 29 banks with global assets of £1 trillion, more than 130 oligarchs with a total fortune of more than £145 billion, and restrictions on trade between Great Britain and the Russian Federation for more than £20 billion.