New UK sanctions against Russian 'information warfare'

LONDON: Britain on Monday announced new sanctions targeting Russia's "information warfare campaigns" over its full-scale Ukraine invasion, alongside those behind the alleged forced deportation and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.

The sanctions package hits 85 people and entities, two-thirds of them related to alleged Russian propaganda operations, including what London said were recent attempts to interfere in upcoming Armenian elections.

Among them were 49 individuals working for the Social Design Agency (SDA), including writers, translators and video makers responsible for "deceptive Kremlin propaganda", the UK government said.

It already targeted the state-funded agency and SDA senior staff with curbs in October 2024, along with two other similar firms.

"The SDA has been tasked and funded by the Kremlin to deliver a series of interference operations designed to undermine democracy and weaken support for Ukraine," Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement.

It added the operations were "almost certainly tasked by the Russian Presidential Administration, including seeking to establish pro-Russia organisations in Armenia and influence a change in power towards pro-Russia figures".

Around a third of Monday's sanctions package took aim again at those involved in what London called "Russia's systematic campaign to forcibly deport and militarise Ukrainian children".

They included the Centre for Military Sports Training and Patriotic Education of Youth, which it said is known as the "Warrior Centre".

"Here, Ukrainian children are subjected to military training and pro‑Kremlin ideology," the Foreign Office said.

It also targeted Yulia Sergeevna Velichko, minister for youth policy in the self-proclaimed and Moscow-led "Luhansk People's Republic", for her "heinous role in implementing state‑led initiatives".

Meanwhile, the UK will provide a further 1.2 million pounds ($1.6 million) to the Verification Centre and Tracing Mechanism working to identify and locate Ukrainian children allegedly forcibly taken from their homes.

Moscow has been accused by numerous Western governments and organisations of forcibly deporting Ukrainian children after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023 over the abduction of Ukrainian children.

In the UK statement, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper vowed Britain "will continue to work alongside our allies to support every effort to identify and trace the children that have been cruelly taken".