Britain announced on Friday new sanctions against 11 senior Russian officials and the country’s election commission in connection with the sham elections held in occupied Ukrainian territories this month and last year.
/nginx/o/2023/09/29/15623730t1heb3a.jpg "AbroadYesterday, 17:31 Great Britain imposes sanctions on Russia for pseudo-elections in the occupied parts of Ukraine 2")
Britain announced on Friday new sanctions against 11 senior Russian officials and the country’s election commission in connection with the sham elections held in occupied Ukrainian territories this month and last year.
With this decision, the number of Russian individuals and legal entities sanctioned by Great Britain since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine exceeds 1,600.
Sanctions were imposed on 11 officials and the election commission because they “directly acted to undermine Ukraine and threaten its territorial integrity” in pseudo-referendums and pseudo-elections last October and this month.
Sanctions have been imposed on the Central Election Commission of Russia and one of the senior officials of the commission, Natalia Budarina.
Sanctions have also been imposed on Andrey Alexienko and Marina Zakharova, who were installed by Moscow as the head of the regional “administration” of Kherson, as well as the head of the “election commission” of this region.
All those subject to sanctions have had their assets frozen and travel restrictions imposed.
Last October, Moscow organized, as described by London, “falsified and illegitimate parodies of referendums” in several occupied regions of Ukraine.
The pseudo-elections in the occupied Crimea ended on September 10.
“Russia’s election parodies are a transparent and unsuccessful attempt to legitimize its illegal control over the sovereign territory of Ukraine,”
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said when announcing the new sanctions.
“You can’t hold elections in a foreign country,” he said.
“The United Kingdom will never recognize Russia’s claims to the territory of Ukraine. Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson are Ukraine,” the minister emphasized.
