US and UK Ready to Punish Putin Associates If Russia Invades Ukraine

The United States and its allies have prepared a list of Russian elites in or near President Vladimir Putin's inner circle to punish with sanctions if Russia sends troops into Ukraine, a senior US official said on Monday.

Britain urged Putin to "step back from the brink" after the Russian buildup of troops near Ukraine stoked fears of war, and also warned that any incursion would trigger sanctions against companies and people with close links to the Kremlin.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the British warning "very disturbing", saying it made Britain less attractive to investors and would hurt British companies.

"It's not often you see or hear such direct threats to attack business," he said. "An attack by a given country on Russian business implies retaliatory measures, and these measures will be formulated based on our interests if necessary."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to speak to Putin by telephone on Monday and travel to Ukraine on Tuesday.

"What I will say to President Putin, as I've said before, is that I think we really all need to step back from the brink, and I think Russia needs to step back from the brink," Johnson told reporters.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to speak by phone with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, a state department spokesperson said.

The UN Security Council met in public on Monday, at the request of the United States, to discuss Russia's troop build-up. The United States described the meeting of the 15-member body as a chance for Russia to explain itself.

At the meeting, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said the West's assertion that it had amassed 100,000 troops near Ukraine had not been confirmed by the international body.

He said the United States' talk of war was provocative, said Russia frequently deployed troops in its own territory, and that Ukraine's crisis was a domestic issue.

China's ambassador to the United Nations said China did not view Russia's troops near the border as a threat and urged all parties to not aggravate the situation.

Russian money abroad

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, London has become the haven of choice for a vast outflow of money from former Soviet republics.

Opponents of Putin have long urged the West to get tough on Russian money, though oligarchs and Russian officials continue to flaunt their wealth at Europe's most luxurious destinations.

Both Washington and London declined to name the individuals they planned to target.

"The individuals we have identified are in or near the inner circles of the Kremlin and play a role in government decision making or are at a minimum complicit in the Kremlin's destabilizing behavior," the US official in Washington said.

"Putin's cronies will no longer be able to use their spouses or other family members as proxies to evade sanctions. Sanctions would cut them off from the international financial system and ensure that they and their family members will no longer able to enjoy the perks of parking their money in the West and attending elite Western universities."

Although Russia, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backs pro-Russian rebels fighting government forces in east Ukraine, denies planning any further incursion, it is demanding sweeping security guarantees including a NATO promise never to admit Ukraine.

Some NATO countries including the United States and Britain have sent arms to Ukraine although they have ruled out sending troops there to fight.

Poland, a NATO member that borders Ukraine as well as the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus - which is hosting Russian drills - said it had offered Ukraine tens of thousands of munitions, and was awaiting a reply.

'Nowhere to hide'

British foreign minister Liz Truss on Sunday announced a plan for new legislation this week to broaden the scope of sanctions that can be applied to Russia.

Britain has already imposed sanctions on about 180 people and 48 entities since Russia annexed Crimea, including six people it says are close to Putin. The sanctions allow Britain to bar individuals from entering and to freeze their assets.

Still, Britain has in the past taken a softer line on Russia's business elite than the United States - for instance sparing Igor Sechin, one of Russia's most powerful men as CEO of oil producer Rosneft, whom Washington sanctioned in 2014.

The European Union, many of whose members are in NATO, has also threatened "strong political consequences and massive economic costs" for Russia over any new incursion into Ukraine.

Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies weakens the West's hand. The United States has asked top gas producer Qatar and other major exporters to study whether they can supply extra gas to Europe if Russian flows are disrupted.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accused South Korea’s “rubbish” media of tarnishing the North’s image by allegedly exaggerating the death tolls from recent floods that hit the country’s northwest region, and hinted that he would refuse Seoul’s offer for aid.

Kim made the comments Friday during a visit to an air force helicopter unit, where he praised the troops for helping rescue people from the floods, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday.

During the visit, Kim denied claims by South Korean media that 1,000 to 1,500 North Koreans would have died from the floods and that multiple helicopters might have crashed during the emergency response. According to The Associated Press, he described the reports as a “vicious smear campaign” by the South.
Kim labeled South Korea as an unchangeable enemy and stressed that the North will never sacrifice its national defense to improve disaster recovery or people’s standards of living — hinting that Pyongyang would reject Seoul's aid offer.
South Korea’s government offered Thursday to send aid supplies to address the “humanitarian challenges” facing North Korean residents in flood-affected areas near the country’s border with China.
It was widely expected that North Korea would reject the offer. Animosity between the war-divided rivals is at its highest in years over the North’s growing nuclear ambitions and the South’s expansion of combined military exercises with the United States and Japan to counter the North’s threats.
The North had also rejected South Korea’s offers for help while battling a COVID-19 outbreak in 2022.
North Korean state media reports said recent heavy rains left 4,100 houses, 7,410 acres of agricultural fields and numerous other public buildings, structures, roads and railways flooded in the northwestern city of Sinuiju and the neighboring town of Uiju.
State media has not provided information on deaths, but Kim was quoted blaming public officials who had neglected disaster prevention, causing “the casualty that cannot be allowed.”
During his visit to the helicopter unit, Kim said it was a miracle that no casualties were reported in the Sinuiju area and credited the air force personnel for pulling off successful rescue missions.
Kim also said that one helicopter made an emergency landing during a rescue mission but that all pilots were safe, in what appeared to be a denial of South Korean media claims about multiple helicopter crashes.

US and UK Ready to Punish Putin Associates If Russia Invades Ukraine