OTTAWA — Britain’s envoy to Canada says the two countries are co-operating on a tough new set of sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine.
Susannah Goshko, the British High Commissioner to Canada, said her country’s passage of new sanctions legislation on Thursday will strengthen its ability to target individuals close to President Vladimir Putin if Russian forces put one toe over the Ukraine border.
“We will be ready to go with sanctions,” Goshko said in an interview Thursday. “This new, enhanced sanctions regime will allow us to put in place really hard-hitting sanctions at that moment. And we’ve been working really closely with a range of allies on this, including Canada.”
Goshko spoke as British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss held talks in Moscow with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Brussels and Poland.
In London on Thursday, the British parliament enacted a new sanctions law that targets Russian political figures as well as the powerful oligarchs that are backing Putin.
The British government was billing the new law as its toughest sanctions regime yet because it targets businesses and individuals in key sectors such as information and communication technology, defence, extractives and financial services.
“This gives us an ability to go after people, businesses or entities who are of strategic importance to the Kremlin,” said Goshko. “They’ll be designed to really hit the Kremlin where it hurts and to not inflict damage on the Russian people. We have no beef with the Russian people.”
Russia’s deployment of 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders is stoking fears of invasion, but Russia denies it has any plans to do so.
Goshko said Britain will be sharing details of its meetings with Canadian officials after receiving a full update on the recent travels of Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and Defence Minister Anita Anand to Ukraine and other European capitals.
The British diplomatic forays follow French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to defuse the tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border with his own meeting with Putin in Moscow on Monday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also held his own talks with Lavrov in Geneva.
