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The UK has announced 31 new sanctions targeting Russian propagandists and torturers.
In a statement, the Foreign Office said that the measures target “shadow fleet vessels, Kremlin disinformation networks and perpetrators of civilian torture and child indoctrination”.
Those being sanctioned include people and entities who have “undermined Ukraine’s territorial integrity through human rights abuses”, the Foreign Office said.
They include eight people who have been involved in the “arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of Ukrainian civilians”.
The human rights abuses are part of “a wider system of repression in Russia’s occupied territories”, the Foreign Office said, adding that enforced disappearance had also been used against Ukrainian civilians.
Seven people are being sanctioned for their role in indoctrinating and militarising Ukrainian children.
The Foreign Office said that about 6,000 Ukrainian children to date had been placed in “heinous” camps established for the purpose of “re-education”.
Millions more Ukrainian children were being subjected to Russian propaganda programmes, which include training in weapons handling and drone operation, the statement said.
“These … are designed to strip children of their Ukrainian identity while preparing them to serve the very state attacking their homeland.”
The Foreign Office said that the UK was taking the actions following “sham elections” in the occupied Ukrainian territories earlier this month.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry earlier warned that the elections were “held at gunpoint”, and Ukrainians were being forced to vote in parliamentary elections that “bear no resemblance to democracy”.
The elections included the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as well as the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
“This is a farce orchestrated by the occupying state; it bears no resemblance to democratic elections and establishes no legal grounds for extending Russian jurisdiction to any part of Ukraine’s territory,” a statement from the ministry said.
“No ‘vote’ organised by Russia at gunpoint alters the internationally recognised status of these territories. Temporary occupation confers no sovereign rights upon the occupying state.”
The Foreign Office said that the other sanctions target several ships which have been acquired to support Russia’s “shadow fleet”, which circumvent existing sanctions and make money for the country’s war effort through its gas exports.
Some of the ships entered service as recently as July.
“We are targeting both the revenues that help sustain Russia’s aggression and perpetrators of horrendous crimes against Ukrainian civilians, including children. The UK will not flinch in our support for Ukraine,” Minister for Europe Lord Wood of Anfield said.
The 23 people and entities sanctioned will be subject to asset freezes, trust services sanctions and director disqualification sanctions.
The people sanctioned are also banned from travelling to the UK.
The eight ships will be subject to shipping and trade sanctions.
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