Sanctions

Debate between Elizabeth Truss and Matt Hancock

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are running through a list, and we have already sanctioned over 120 businesses in Russia and oligarchs. We have prevented the Russian central bank from deploying its international reserves to counteract sanctions. We are freezing bank assets of vast parts of the Russian economy, and we will continue to do more to target individual companies with freezes and sanctions. As I have said, nothing is off the table, and we are working in train with our allies on all of this.

[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary and the Government on the swift action they have taken, including the action against the Russian central bank, and I commend her for her work to go further. Frankly, however, is it not desperate and indeed pitiful to try to blame words from Her Majesty’s Government for the outrageous Russian escalation of dangerous rhetoric yesterday, because the truth is that it is imperative for the stability of the international order that Putin fails?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend is right. The reality is that Putin has made these threats to distract from his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. We are being targeted because the UK has been leading on measures both to support Ukraine and to degrade the Russian economy, and the Russians do not like it.