West Starts Issuing Fresh Sanctions Against Russia

U.K. announces new measures, with U.S., EU expected to launch fresh efforts to tighten sanctions net around Russia

The West started rolling out its latest package of coordinated sanctions against Russia, marking the first anniversary of the invasion and setting up for a long-haul effort to squeeze Russia’s economy.

U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly kicked off a series of new Western government measures early Friday, saying Britain would place export bans on all items Ukraine has found Russia using on the battlefield. The U.K. also added close to 100 Russian individuals and entities, including officials from state-owned nuclear company Rosatom, to its sanctions list.

European Union member states, meanwhile, are meeting Friday in a bid to finalize a package of measures aimed at restricting more than $11 billion in Russian imports, including dual-use goods, or products that can be used both on and off the battlefield. The EU measures are also aimed at ratcheting up the bloc’s ability to enforce existing sanctions.

“Today we are sanctioning the elites who run Putin’s key industries and committing to prohibit the export to Russia of every item Russia has been found using on the battlefield,” the U.K.’s Mr. Cleverly said.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday repeated its criticism of the West for what it described as unbridled anti-Russian sentiment. “The unprecedented rampant Russophobia in the countries of the ‘collective West’ is not weakening, it has already reached unprecedented proportions,” the ministry said in a statement posted on its Telegram channel.

Over the past 12 months, the U.S., EU and U.K. have issued sanctions, export controls, oil embargoes and energy-price caps in an effort to isolate Russia economically and deprive it of its financial and technological ability to wage war. They have largely disconnected Russia from the global financial system and frozen its central-bank reserves. They have also gone after Russia’s business and political elite, attempting to further pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to change tack in Ukraine.

Having rolled out the most effective measures early in the war, however, officials now are facing the limits of what fresh measures can accomplish. The new penalties mark a shift toward enforcing and tightening existing penalties already in place against Russia.

Kremlin technocrats have deployed a series of measures to prop up Russia’s economy, while high oil prices have provided a gusher of hard currency and tax revenue for the Russian coffers. The Russian economy contracted 2.2% last year, less severe than forecast, and is expected to grow 0.3% this year, outpacing expectations for the U.K., according to the International Monetary Fund.

In a speech this week, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the Kremlin was making an all-out effort to evade Western sanctions.

Mr. Adeyemo said the U.S., EU and Group of Seven allies are prepared to use sanctions, export controls and other tools to give companies doing business with Russia a stark choice: “To do business with a coalition representing half of the global GDP, or to provide material support to Russia.”

The sanction measures come at a critical moment in the conflict, which began on Feb. 24 last year when Russian forces launched a broad attack on Ukraine and sought to capture the capital, Kyiv. A year later, Russian forces have lost swaths of the ground they initially took but have held on to other territorial gains. Russian forces have made small advances in the east of Ukraine, with heavy losses on both sides.

The new U.K. sanctions target four Russian banks, including MTS, in a bid to further isolate the country’s financial system. The country also sanctioned German businessman Matthias Warnig, the chief executive officer of the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline project. Mr. Warnig wasn’t immediately reachable for comment.

The pipeline has served as a key flashpoint in the economic war that has played out alongside the real war in Ukraine. Germany refused to open the recently finished Nord Stream 2 line, running from Russia to Europe, after the invasion.

Mr. Putin throttled back repeatedly on gas flows on other lines, including the older Nord Stream line. Both were severely damaged after explosives were detonated along the undersea pipes. Some Western and Russian officials initially pointed fingers at each other for the attack, but investigators haven’t named a culprit.