Invasion of Ukraine has begun, UK health secretary says

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/feb/22/ukraine-russia-latest-live-news-updates-crisis-putin-biden-zelenskiy-kyiv-kiev-russian-invasion-border-threat

 

From 2h ago

07:22

Invasion of Ukraine has begun, UK health secretary says

UK health minister Sajid Javid says it is clear Russian president Vladimir Putin has decided to attack the sovereignty of Ukraine and believes an invasion has already begun, Reuters reports.

 

We are waking up to a very dark day in Europe and it’s clear from what we have already seen and found out today that the Russians, President Putin, has decided to attack the sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity.”

 

The health secretary told Sky News:

 

We have seen that he has recognised these breakaway eastern regions in Ukraine and from the reports we can already tell that he has sent in tanks and troops.

 

From that you can conclude that the invasion of Ukraine has begun.”

 

Javid added that Boris Johnson will make a statement to parliament today on Ukraine.

 

We will have more on this story as it develops.

 

Updated at 7.32am GMT

2m ago

09:18

Britain will immediately impose hard economic sanctions on Russia after President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Boris Johnson has said.

 

We will immediately institute a package of economic sanctions. This is, I should stress, just the first barrage of UK economic sanctions against Russia, because we expect I’m afraid that there is more Russian irrational behaviour to come … [The sanctions] will hit Russia very hard, and there is a lot more that we are going to do in the event of an invasion.

 

Johnson said he would set out the sanctions in the House of Commons, probably at around 1230 GMT.

 

The sanctions, Johnson said, would be “targeted not just at entities in Donbas and Luhansk and Donetsk, but in Russia itself - targeting Russian economic interests as hard as we can.”

 

Britain has threatened to cut off Russian companies’ access to US dollars and British pounds, blocking them from raising capital in London and to expose what Johnson calls the “Russian doll” of property and company ownership.

 

Britain has not yet spelled out who would fall under the sanctions, but has pledged that there would be nowhere for Russian oligarchs to hide. Johnson has said targets could include Russian banks.

 

Hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed into London and Britain’s overseas territories from Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and London has become the Western city of choice for the super-wealthy of Russia and other former Soviet republics.

 

Putin will find he has “gravely miscalculated”, Johnson said, adding that Moscow appeared to be bent on a full-scale invasion of its former Soviet neighbour.

 

Johnson chaired a meeting of Britain’s national emergency security committee early on Tuesday. Speaking afterwards, he said:

 

I think that the tragedy of the present situation is that President Putin has surrounded himself with like-minded advisors who tell him that Ukraine is not a proper country. And I think that he is going to find that he has gravely miscalculated.

 

(Via Reuters)