Foreign secretary Liz Truss has this week announced a ban on services exports to Russia.
The move prohibits Russia from doing business with the UK services industry, with the services sector seen as key to Russia’s economy that has already been hit by sanctions.
UK accountancy, management consultancy and PR services account for 10 per cent of Russian imports in these industries, and Moscow heavily relies on service companies in the West for production and export of manufactured goods.
Truss said upon announcing the ban that the move would apply further pressure to the Russian economy and drain more supply to Putin’s war machine.
She said: “Doing business with Putin’s regime is morally bankrupt and helps fund a war machine that is causing untold suffering across Ukraine. Cutting Russia’s access to British services will put more pressure on the Kremlin and ultimately help ensure Putin fails in Ukraine.”
UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng added: “Our professional services exports are extraordinarily valuable to many countries, which is exactly why we’re locking Russia out. By restricting Russia’s access to our world-class management consultants, accountants and PR firms, we’re ratcheting up economic pressure on the Kremlin to change course.”
The move comes alongside a package of 63 new sanctions, with Russian actors and mainstream media organisations now being targeted with asset freezes and travel bans.
State-owned Russian outlet Channel One has been among the networks whose personnel have been targeted, a channel which has been known to spread disinformation to justify the attack on Ukraine. Three correspondents in Russia including All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company’s Evgeny Poddubny, newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda’s war correspondent Alexander Kots and Russian journalist Dmitry Steshin have been affected.
The All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company has itself also been sanctioned as an entity, as have news agency InfoRos, disinformation site SouthFront and online journal The Strategic Culture Foundation. All of these have played roles in justifying Russian aggression in Ukraine through disinformation. They have also been known to spread falsehoods about Russian acts carried out during the invasion, while InfoRos is also alleged to have links to Russian intelligence agencies.
Prior to the latest wave of sanctions, the UK passed legislation which forces social media, online app companies and internet firms to block content which could be seen as spreading disinformation emerging from Russian networks RT and Sputnik.
Chris Philp, tech and digital economy minister, said that RT and Sputnik have gone on unchecked for too long in spreading a disinformation campaign used to justify Russia’s military incursion on Ukraine.
He said: “For too long RT and Sputnik have churned out dangerous nonsense dressed up as serious news to justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“These outlets have already been booted off the airwaves in Britain and we’ve barred anyone from doing business with them. Now we’ve moved to pull the plug on their websites, social media accounts and apps to further stop the spread of their lies.”
The UK government has said that it will continue to work closely with social media outlets and allies across the West to counter disinformation emerging from Russia to curb the spread of pro-Moscow propaganda.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
