Boris Johnson has been described as the “most active anti-Russian leader” by the Kremlin after he urged the West to sanction President Putin’s gold reserves.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, singled out Johnson as Nato leaders gathered in Brussels. “We see him as the most active participant in the race to be anti-Russian,” Peskov said. “It will lead to a foreign policy dead end.”
No 10 said that Johnson was against Putin, not the Russian people. “The prime minister is among the most active anti-Putin leaders,” a spokesman said. “We have no issue with the Russian people. In fact, we have seen many bravely protest, not least Alexei Navalny, against Putin’s regime and call on them to cease this war.
“We are among some of the world leaders that have been most proactive when it comes to taking steps to both defend Ukraine’s interests and up the pressure on Putin to change course.”
The prime minister is in Brussels today for a meeting of Nato allies. Beforehand he said that Russia had crossed a “threshold of barbarism” when its military began attacking civilians, adding that sanctioning gold reserves could “shorten the slaughter”.
Advertisement
He told LBC: “We need to do more. And so we need to do more economically; can we do more to stop him using his gold reserves for instance, in addition to his cash reserves?
“My message today in Nato will be that there are ways in which the world can continue to intensify the pressure on Putin. The more we do that now, the more pressure we apply now — particularly on things like gold — I believe the more we can shorten the war, shorten the slaughter in Ukraine.
“He’s already crossed a threshold of barbarism in the way he’s behaving. People talk about new red lines for chemical, biological, tactical nuclear weapons or whatever. For me, the red line already has been crossed.”
Russia’s central bank has already been hit by western sanctions but a loophole allows Moscow to sell gold on the international market. Russia has the fifth-largest gold reserves in the world, valued at more than £100 billion.
Johnson’s invocation of red lines echoes Barack Obama’s language in 2012, when he was asked about what would trigger American military intervention in Syria. He broke his own “red line” by saying he would only intervene if Syria used chemical weapons then failing to do so.
Advertisement
The Biden administration declared yesterday that Russian troops had committed war crimes in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute offenders.
Johnson said: “It’s right that Russia should now be called before the International Court of Justice and right that President Putin should appear before the International Criminal Court. There is no question that what they are doing are war crimes.”
It comes as British investigators prepare to start work with the UN’s top criminal court as part of a £1 million government package aimed at prosecuting alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
The resource boost to the International Criminal Court came after Dominic Raab, the justice secretary, visited senior officials in the Hague last week.
Johnson also announced sanctions on the Wagner Group, a paramilitary organisation closely associated with the Kremlin.
Advertisement
Russia has been accused of deploying the group in central Africa, the Middle East and most recently in Ukraine to disguise its military activities.
The band of mercenaries is run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a man who has been nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because of his catering contracts with the Kremlin.
Speaking after arriving in Brussels, Johnson said: “We’ve got to step up, we’ve got to increase our support, we’ve got to tighten the economic vice around Putin, sanctioning more people today as we are, sanctioning the Wagner Group.”
