LBritish Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to avoid “bloodshed” in Ukraine and must call Vladimir Putin to urge him again to “step back and engage diplomatically,” a Downing Street spokeswoman said Friday evening. “The Prime Minister is determined to accelerate diplomatic efforts and strengthen deterrence to avoid bloodshed in Europe,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “He will reiterate the need for Russia to step back and engage diplomatically when he meets with President Putin this week,” she added.
In addition to this call, the head of the British government must make a trip to the region in the coming days. Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine’s borders in recent months, raising fears of an invasion. While the Russian government denies any such plans, it insists on written guarantees for Russia’s security, including the promise that Ukraine will not join NATO.
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British diplomacy must announce Monday in Parliament a toughening of its sanctions regime to allow the United Kingdom, accused of turning a blind eye to the influx of Russian funds on its soil, to target strategic and financial interests of Moscow.
Russian money raises questions
In a column published Friday in CityAm, one of the dailies prized by Britain’s powerful financial industry, Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, stressed that the Russian threat came not just from “tanks” but also from ” cash “.
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“While Moscow flexes its muscles in Ukraine, Russian money is still poisoning our shores,” he said, considering that funds placed in “accounts and properties in London are used to undermine the security of the United Kingdom “. He notably cited the death of ex-Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium in 2006 in London after having denounced the corruption and alleged links of the Russian intelligence services with organized crime.