Boris Johnson has unveiled the "largest and most severe package" of sanctions "that Russia has ever seen" after Moscow launched a brutal invasion of Ukraine by land, sea and air.
Speaking in the Commons, the Prime Minister called the Russian President a “blood-stained aggressor who believes in imperial conquest” and was “always determined to attack his neighbour, no matter what we did”.
The Prime Minister told MPs “this hideous and barbarous venture of Vladimir Putin must end in failure” as he revealed London will now target all major Russian banks, five oligarchs and more than 100 companies and individuals.
The UK will Immediately freeze assets worth £154bn in VTB - the second largest bank in Russia - while Rostec, Russia's biggest defence company with over two million employees, with exports of over £10bn of arms each year, will also face strict sanctions, as part of measures the PM said were designed to "hobble" Russia's economy.
The five "elite individuals", who have close links to the Kremlin, will see their assets frozen and cannot travel to the UK or interact with British businesses.
The elite individuals include Kirill Shamalov, Russia’s youngest billionaire, who was married to Putin's second daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, and a former economic adviser to the Kremlin. Petr Fradkov, CEO of Promsvyazbank, and son of the former boss of the FSB, Denis Bortnikov, deputy president of the state-owned VTB Bank, Yury Slyusar, director of United Aircraft Corporation, and Elena Aleksandrovna Georgieva, the chairwoman of the board of Novicom bank, which bankrolls Rostech.
“Putin will stand condemned in the eyes of the world and of history," he said. "He will never be able to cleanse the blood of Ukraine from his hands.
“Although the UK and our allies tried every avenue for diplomacy until the final hour, I am driven to conclude that Putin was always determined to attack his neighbour, no matter what we did.”
He said the G7 agreed to work in unity to “maximise the economic price that Putin will pay for his aggression”, saying that must include “ending Europe’s collective dependence on Russian oil and gas that has served to empower Putin for too long”.
He also said “countries that together comprise about half the world economy are now engaged in maximising economic pressure on one that makes up a mere 2%”.
Legislation will be introduced to prohibit the ability of all major Russian companies to raise finance on UK markets and stop the Russian state raising sovereign debt on the UK market.
The UK will also ban Russian aircraft with the state-owned Aeroflot line from landing in the UK and extend the current sanctions regime to Belarus, as Minsk's forces are believed to be aiding Putin's assault.
The PM also revealed that measures on unexplained wealth orders from the Economic Crime Bill will be brought forward and introduced before the Easter recess.
The PM said the new powers will allow the UK to “totally to exclude Russian banks from the UK financial system” and stop them from accessing sterling and clearing payments through the UK. He said about half of Russia’s trade is in dollars and sterling, and said the US is taking similar measures to the UK.
He said: “These powers will also enable us to ban Russian state and private companies from raising funds in the UK, banning dealing with their securities and making loans to them.
“We will limit the amount of money that Russian nationals will be able to deposit in their UK bank accounts and sanctions will also be applied to Belarus for its role in the assault on Ukraine.”
Mr Johnson will chair another Cabinet meeting and a second Cobra meeting in the coming hours as the Government considers how to continue its response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Replying to the PM's statement, Labour leader Keir Starmer said "this must be a turning point in history".
He said: "We must look back and say that this terrible day was actually when Putin doomed himself, and doomed his plan to reassert Russian force as a means of controlling Eastern Europe, to defeat."
He added: "The consequences of Putin’s actions will be felt throughout the world. For years and I fear decades to come.
"Russia’s democratic neighbours and every other democracy that lives in the shadow of autocratic power are watching their worst nightmare unfold.
"So all those who believe in democracy, over dictatorship, in the rule of law, over the reign of terror, in freedom, over the jackboot of tyranny, must unite and take a stand.
"We must support the Ukrainian people in their fight and we must ensure Putin fails."
It comes after Putin said that allies of Ukraine who try to interfere with his attack will "face consequences greater than any you have faced in history".
Within moments of the Russian President's early morning address, his forces fired missiles at several Ukrainian cities and landed troops on its south coast.
A Ministry of Defence intelligence update at 4pm said Russian troops based in Belarus were moving towards Kyiv.
The update said: “Russia has conducted an air assault on an airfield on the outskirts of Kyiv” and that “strikes have been delivered through a combination of Russian ground, air and sea-launched missiles and by artillery bombardment”.
The update said the strikes had targeted military infrastructure – especially command and control and air defence installations – and that the Ukrainian forces had “put up a staunch resistance and continue to hold key cities”.
But it added that “heavy casualties have been suffered on both sides, although exact numbers are currently unclear”.
Nato’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Russia had shattered peace on the European continent with "a deliberate, cold-blooded and long-planned invasion” as he called for a summit of Nato alliance leaders to take place on Friday.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this afternoon that Moscow's troops were trying to seize the Chernobyl nuclear plant in what he described as "a declaration of war against the whole of Europe”.
The plant was the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident when a nuclear reactor exploded in April 1986, spewing radioactive waste across Europe. It lies 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of the capital Kyiv.
The exploded reactor has been covered by a protective shelter to prevent radiation leak and the entire plant has been decommissioned.
Mr Zelensky said on Twitter that “our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated”.
