April 1, 2022 12:04 AM GMT+7 Last Updated 18 hours ago
Plastic letters arranged to read "Sanctions" are placed in front the Union Jack and Russian flag colors in this illustration taken February 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
LONDON, March 31
(Reuters) - Britain announced sanctions on 14 more Russian entities and people
on Thursday, including state media organisations behind RT and Sputnik and some
senior figures, saying it was targeting those who push out President Vladimir
Putin's "fake news and narratives".
Britain is acting in
concert with its Western allies to try to cripple Russia's economy as
punishment for its invasion of Ukraine, and has already sanctioned more than
1,000 individuals and businesses.
Among those sanctioned
on Thursday were RT's managing director, Alexey Nikolov, Sergey Brilev, a
prominent news anchor at the state-owned Rossiya Television and Radio network,
and Sputnik Editor-in-Chief Anton Anisimov.
The government said it
was also directly sanctioning state media organisations, including Kremlin
funded TV-Novosti which owns RT, and Rossiya Segodnya, which controls news
agency Sputnik.
"Putin’s war on
Ukraine is based on a torrent of lies," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said
in a statement.
"Britain has
helped lead the world in exposing Kremlin disinformation, and this latest batch
of sanctions hits the shameless propagandists who push out Putin’s fake news
and narratives."
RT said the sanctions
showed the imminent end of media freedom in Britain. read more
"We will continue
to bring the news to audiences that wish to seek it, and prevent a media echo chamber
from being orchestrated by blinkered officials hell-bent on conflating anything
remotely Russian with wrong," Anna Belkina, RT's deputy editor in chief,
told Reuters.
Brilev did not respond
to requests for comment.
The Russian foreign
ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Russian officials say
RT - which had its UK broadcasting licence revoked earlier this month - is a
way for Moscow to compete with the dominance of global media companies based in
the United States and Britain that Moscow says offer a partial view of the
world. read more
Moscow calls the
invasion it launched on Feb. 24 a "special military operation" aimed
at demilitarising and "denazifying" its neighbour - which Ukraine and
the West have dismissed as a baseless pretext for war.
Britain's new
sanctions also include seven individuals connected to Russian think tank the
Strategic Culture Foundation, who were recently sanctioned by Australia for
their role in spreading disinformation.
The government said it
had also sanctioned Russia's Chief of the National Defence Command and Control
Centre Mikhail Mizinitsev, who it said had been "responsible for planning
and executing the siege and bombardment of Mariupol" - a southern
Ukrainian port city that has been bombarded for weeks.
Britain has used
sanctions to target Russia's access to the international financial system, as
well as industries such as shipping and defence, and wealthy elites close to
Putin.
Reporting by William
James and Guy Faulconbridge; Writing by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Kate Holton,
Frances Kerry and Alexander Smith
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-makes-14-additions-russia-sanctions-list-2022-03-31/
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