Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.tamilguardian.com
The tanker Eagle S, widely reported to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, anchored off Porvoo, Finland, in December 2024. Photograph: Htm / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Britain has imposed sanctions on 38 targets linked to Russia’s oil revenues, its shadow fleet of tankers, its payment networks and the supply of goods for its military, on a day when Russian strikes killed dozens of civilians in Ukraine.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Thursday that the designations include the oil companies Zarubezhneft and INK Capital, making the UK the first G7 country to sanction Russia’s top four oil producers. The government says its sanctions now cover more than 90% of Russia’s oil production capacity.
Twelve more tankers were added, bringing the number of shadow fleet vessels sanctioned by the UK to more than 600. The fleet of ageing, often poorly insured tankers is used to move Russian oil around Western price caps.
The package also targets three cryptocurrency exchanges, two payment platforms and a linked individual, two of which processed transactions for the Kremlin-backed A7 network. The UK says A7 claimed to have moved more than $90 billion last year, roughly half of Russia’s annual military spending. A further 17 companies and individuals were sanctioned for supplying machine tools, electronics and materials used in missiles and drones.
“The message is simple: if you help Russia fund or equip this war, you will face the consequences,” the Foreign Office said, according to Ukrinform.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Whitehall, London. Photograph: UK Government / Wikimedia Commons, Open Government Licence
Strikes on Ukraine
The sanctions were announced as the foreign secretary Ed Miliband visited Ukraine. On the same day, a Russian glide bomb hit two buses in Kramatorsk, killing at least 33 people, a day after a missile strike on an apartment building in Pryluky killed 22. The UN human rights chief Volker Türk said at least 85 civilians had been killed in Russian strikes across Ukraine in four days, warning that “deliberate attacks on civilians could amount to war crimes”.
In August, the government said it had sanctioned more than 3,400 individuals, entities and ships under its Russia regime. Designations announced on 1 October included people accused of torture and of deporting Ukrainian children.
Sri Lanka turned to Russia for fuel earlier this year as the war in the Middle East disrupted oil supplies, and hundreds of Sri Lankans have been recruited to fight for Russia in Ukraine.
