United Kingdom
Overall Score
Details
B+
On Track
Accomplishments:
- Provided substantial military support to Ukraine, including lethal weapons, intelligence, and cyber capabilities.
- Effectively sanctioned financial institutions and assets of Russian oligarchs.
Drawbacks:
- Is capable of getting rid of Russian natural gas, and further isolating Russia diplomatically.
Condemnation
Military Support
Providing military support for Ukraine, composed of four key categories:
- Ground Forces Support (e.g. small arms, defensive equipment, anti-tank)
- Air Defense Support
- Communications Support
- Cyber Intelligence Support
- UK provided military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-tank and air defense capabilities.
- UK, Poland and Ukraine announced a security pact in matters of military, cyber security, energy security, and countering disinformation.
- UK deployed surveillance aircraft to provide information on size and position of Russian forces.
- UK provided ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance) support to Ukraine, both stand-alone and in partnership with the US.
Financial & Institutional Sanctions
Identifying sanctions impacting the Russian economy as a whole, including banks, sovereign debt, industry, access to global markets, etc.
- UK has lead the Western push against Russian financial institutions.
- It froze more Russian bank assets than any other country in the world. Within 24 hours, the Russian central bank and Russians lost access to 60 per cent of FX reserves, $388bn out of a total $643bn.
- UK cut off 7 Russian banks from SWIFT.
- UK's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has called to extend sanctions to all Russian banks, in order to ensure that no Russian bank has access to SWIFT.
Sanctions on Oligarchs, Kleptocrats, & Western Enablers
Sanctions on individuals in Putin's inner circle including:
- exposing & seizing their assets
- revoking their visas
- holding them legally accountable where possible
The goal is to convince these individuals that their futures would be better without Putin than with him.
- Imposed asset freezes on 66 Russian businessmen including Roman Abramovich, Igor Sechin, Oleg Deripaska and Dmitri Lebedev, sanctioned 386 Russian lawmakers who supported Ukraine breakaway regions.
- Announced sanctions against 576 more Russian and Belarusian individuals and entities.
Diplomatic Isolation
Measures taken to isolate Russia diplomatically (e.g. recall of ambassadors & diplomats, stripping Russia of its G20 membership, etc)
Boris Johnson is being urged by a senior Tory MP and opposition parties at Westminster to expel Russia’s ambassador to the UK over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Propaganda
Combatting Putin's global propaganda network. While respecting freedom of speech, Putin should not be allowed to spread disinformation while Russia bans every single independent outlet. This measures countries' success in curbing Russian disinformation spread through Russia Today and other platforms.
- UK access to the TV network, formerly called Russia Today, has been affected by a ban imposed by the European Union. Although the UK is no longer in the EU, the bloc applied sanctions to satellite companies in Luxembourg and France, which provided the RT feed to Sky, Freesat and Freeview.
- On March 18, British media regulator Ofcom revoked RT's licence to broadcast in the UK with immediate effect, after 29 investigations were opened against RT.
Replace Russian Energy
Replacing Russian energy exports with alternative energy sources. That includes increasing production and opening new sources from fracking to nuclear to renewables.
- Britain will phase out imports of Russian oil and oil products by the end of 2022. It will also stop exports of oil refinery equipment. However:
- UK still receives Russian gas in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) form.