UK imposes fresh sanctions on Belarus

By Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) - Britain has imposed fresh sanctions on Belarus on the anniversary of alleged fraudulent presidential elections in the country, an official statement said on Monday.

“The (Alexander) Lukashenko regime continues to crush democracy and violate human rights in Belarus. These sanctions demonstrate that the UK will not accept Lukashenko’s actions since the fraudulent election. The products of Lukashenko’s state-owned industries will not be sold in the UK, and our aerospace companies will not touch his fleet of luxury aircraft,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in the statement.

The UK’s package of sanctions includes: aviation measures to prevent Belarusian air carriers from flying over or landing in the UK and a ban on providing technical assistance to Lukashenko’s fleet of luxury aircraft; trade measures on potash, petroleum products as well as the interception and monitoring of goods and technology to reduce the amount of revenue to Lukashenko’s regime and to limit its access to items that could enable the internal repression of the Belarusian people, and financial measures prohibiting purchases of transferable securities and money-market instruments issued by the Belarusian state, as well as those issued by state-owned banks, and the provision of loans.

The British government will also further tighten its existing arms embargo and designated Mikhail Gutseriev, a Russian businessman who is also one of the main private investors in Belarus and a longstanding associate of Lukashenko.

“These measures represent a significant additional step in bringing pressure to bear on the Lukashenko regime. They are carefully targeted to build pressure on Lukashenko, state institutions and those around him to change behaviour, while minimising, as far as possible, any unintended consequences on the wider population in Belarus,” the statement said.