Britain sanctions five banks and Gennady Timchenko, Johnson says By Reuters

By Kylie MacLellan and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Tuesday slapped sanctions on five Russian banks and three high-net worth individuals including Gennady Timchenko after President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

“This is the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament.

“Any assets they hold in the UK will be frozen and the individuals concerned will be banned from traveling here,” Johnson said of the individuals being sanctioned.

Timchenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The sanctioned banks are Rossiya, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank, Johnson said.

“We must now brace ourselves for the next possible stages of Putin’s plan,” Johnson told the lower house of the British parliament. “Putin is establishing the pretext for a full scale offensive.”

Britain has threatened to cut off Russian companies’ access to US dollars and British pounds, blocking them from raising capital in London and to expose what Johnson calls the “Russian doll” of property and company ownership.

Russia’s once mighty superpower economy is now smaller than Italy’s based on IMF data, with a nominal GDP of around $ 1.7 trillion.