Putin BANS Boris from Russia: Foreign Ministry puts SANCTIONS on Boris Johnson and British Cabinet officials including Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and Priti Patel from entering the country
Deranged despot Vladimir Putin has banned Boris Johnson from entering Russia as he lashes out at Britain over his failing war in Ukraine.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it has slapped sanctions on 10 other UK government members and politicians in view of the ‘unprecedented hostile action by the British Government, in particular the imposition of sanctions against senior Russian officials’.
In a statement, it accused Britain of ‘deliberately aggravating the situation surrounding Ukraine, pumping the Kyiv regime with lethal weapons and coordinating similar efforts on the behalf of NATO’ and threatened to expand its sanctions list ‘soon’.
Russia’s entry blacklist includes UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, former Prime Minister Theresa May and even the SNP First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon.
London has been part of an international effort to punish Moscow with asset freezes, travel bans and economic sanctions, since Putin moved troops into Ukraine on February 24.
Mr Johnson has also accused Russia of committing war crimes in Bucha and Irpin, and has reiterated his mantra that ‘Putin must fail’ – a policy he emphasised yet again when he was apologising to the British public after being fined by Scotland Yard for breaking Covid lockdown laws.
At a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the PM said: ‘What Putin has done in places like Bucha and Irpin is war crimes that have permanently polluted his reputation and the reputation of his government.’
And President Zelensky has hailed Mr Johnson as the ‘leader’ of the ‘anti-war coalition’ – a sentiment which is likely to have irritated, indeed angered, Putin and his cronies.
Russia’s foreign ministry added: ‘This step was taken as a response to London’s unbridled information and political campaign aimed at isolating Russia internationally, creating conditions for restricting our country and strangling the domestic economy.’
The Kremlin last month effectively branded Mr Johnson Russia’s public enemy No1 over his role in galvanising Western nations against punishing Putin’s regime for launching its illegal and barbaric war against the former Soviet republic.
Boris Johnson and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, April 9, 2022
Putin chairs a video conference call on the situation in the oil and gas industries, from the official residence at Novo-Ogaryovo, April 14, 2022
The Russian tyrant’s notorious spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has himself been sanctioned by the UK, singled out the PM as the ‘most active’ opponent of his brutal war, warning: ‘As for Mr Johnson, we see him as the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian. It will lead to a foreign policy dead end.’
The PM acknowledged he was ‘deeply hostile’ to Putin’s war, but insisted he was ‘not remotely anti-Russian’.
Speaking at an emergency NATO summit in Brussels, he likened Putin’s tactics to those of the Nazis, saying: ‘What Vladimir Putin is doing, the way he’s leading Russia at the moment, is utterly catastrophic – his invasion of Ukraine is inhuman and barbaric.
‘And the conduct of that invasion is now moving into the type of behaviour that we haven’t seen in the continent of Europe for 80 years, and it’s horrific.
‘So you can be sympathetic towards ordinary Russians, who are being so badly led, but you can be deeply hostile to the decisions of Vladimir Putin.’
It comes as Moscow threatened to mount renewed missile attacks on Kyiv, where authorities said the bodies of more than 900 civilians were found outside the capital.
Russian forces continued preparations for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine, and fighting also went on in the pummelled southern port city of Mariupol, where locals reported seeing Russian troops digging up bodies.
In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, the shelling of a residential area killed seven people, including a seven-month-old child, and wounded 34, according to regional governor Oleh Sinehubov.
Early on Saturday, Kyiv’s eastern district of Darnytskie was struck, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He said rescuers and paramedics were on the scene, and warned residents who have fled the capital not to return for their own safety.
Around Kyiv, Andriy Nebytov, the head of the capital’s regional police force, said bodies were abandoned in the streets or given temporary burials. He cited police data indicating 95% died from gunshot wounds.
‘Consequently, we understand that under the (Russian) occupation, people were simply executed in the streets,’ Mr Nebytov said.
More bodies are being found every day under rubble and in mass graves, he added, with the largest number – 35 – found in Bucha.
According to Mr Nebytov, utility workers gathered and buried bodies in the Kyiv suburb while it remained under Russian control. Russian troops, he added, had been ‘tracking down’ people who expressed strong pro-Ukrainian views.
President Zelensky accused Russian troops occupying parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south of terrorising civilians and hunting for anyone who served in Ukraine’s military or government.
‘The occupiers think this will make it easier for them to control this territory. But they are very wrong. They are fooling themselves,’ he said in his nightly video address.
‘Russia’s problem is that it is not accepted – and never will be accepted – by the entire Ukrainian people. Russia has lost Ukraine forever.’
More violence could be in store for Kyiv after Russian authorities accused Ukraine of wounding seven people and damaging about 100 residential buildings with airstrikes in Bryansk, a region bordering Ukraine. Authorities in another border region of Russia also reported Ukrainian shelling on Thursday.
‘The number and the scale of missile attacks on objects in Kyiv will be ramped up in response to the Kyiv nationalist regime committing any terrorist attacks or diversions on the Russian territory,’ Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Russia used missiles to destroy a facility for the repair and production of missile systems in Kyiv. Ukrainian officials have not confirmed striking targets in Russia, and the reports could not be independently verified. However, Ukrainian officials said forces did strike a key Russian warship with missiles.
A senior US defence official backed up the claim, anonymously saying the US now believes the Moskva was hit by at least one Neptune anti-ship missile and probably two.
The Moskva, named for the Russian capital, sank while being towed to port on Thursday after taking heavy damage.
Moscow did not acknowledge any attack, saying only that a fire had detonated ammunition on board. The loss of the ship represents an important victory for Ukraine and a symbolic defeat for Russia.
The sinking reduces Russia’s firepower in the Black Sea and seemed to symbolise Moscow’s fortunes in an eight-week invasion widely seen as a historic blunder following the Russian retreat from the Kyiv region and much of northern Ukraine.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.
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