The U.K., Australia and Japan Impose New Sanctions On Russia

On May 4th, the U.K. banned all service sector exports to Russia and imposed sanctions on 63 individuals and organizations in its latest wave of measures to increase pressure on Moscow.

The U.K. government said the measures would cut off Russia’s access to Britain’s management consulting, accounting and public relations services, including the Big Four accounting and consultancy firms-Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC. Many other service companies such as advertising groups have also sought to sell or close their Russian operations.

In addition, the U.K. also imposed sanctions on individual journalists and media organizations. The Technology and Digital Economy Minister Chris Philp said for too long, Russia Today and Sputnik had churned out dangerous nonsense to justify Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now the U.K. moved to pull the plug on their websites, social media accounts and apps to further stop the spread of their lies.The Australian government has put 75 Russian State Duma lawmakers on the sanctions list, which took the total number of individuals and entities in Russia subject to Australian sanctions to over 750.

On May 5th, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced additional sanctions on Russia at the press conference in London, including freezing the assets of 140 additional individuals and more Russian banks, export embargo to 70 organizations related to the Russian military and export ban on high-tech products such as quantum computers to Russia.