UK announces new Russia sanctions over deportation of Ukrainian children

London — The British government said on Monday it had introduced new sanctions, including against Russian education minister Sergey Kravtsov, related to what it describes as Moscow’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children.

Britain imposed 14 new sanctions designations in response to “Russia’s attempts to destroy Ukrainian national identity”, 11 of which it said were linked to the forcible relocation of children. They will be subject to asset freezes and travel bans.

“In his chilling programme of forced child deportation, and the hate-filled propaganda spewed by his lackeys, we see (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s true intention — to wipe Ukraine from the map,” British foreign secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

“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.”

Russia’s embassy in Britain called the new sanctions “categorically unacceptable and legally null”, and said in a statement the people sanctioned included those who had taken part in the rescue of children.

An EU sanctions package in June included those the bloc said were responsible for “the forced transfers and deportation of Ukrainian children and persons responsible for the looting of Ukraine’s cultural heritage”.

In June 2022, Britain also sanctioned Russian children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the forced transfer and adoption of Ukrainian children.

Britain says many of the children have been sent to re-education camps, where they are “exposed to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and military education”.

Earlier in July, Russia said it had brought about 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory for their own protection.

Ukraine has managed to return some of them but says many are considered illegally deported, without permission from their parents or Ukrainian authorities.

In June, Ukrainian prosecutors charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes over the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans from the formerly occupied southern city of Kherson.

Russian culture minister Olga Lyubimova was also sanctioned on Monday “for using her position to support the Russian state’s damaging anti-Ukrainian policies”, Britain said, and former Russia Today presenter Anton Krasovsky for spreading “propaganda designed to incite violence and hatred towards Ukraine”.

Cleverly will chair a session on Ukraine at the UN Security Council in New York later on Monday, where he will highlight the deportation of Ukrainian children, his office said.

Reuters