British foreign minister, Liz Truss, said on Saturday that there is a possibility of lifting the sanctions imposed on the Russian individuals and companies on the condition that Russia withdraws from Ukraine and pledges to end its aggression in Ukraine, the Telegraph newspaper reported.
Britain, along with other Western nations has imposed economic sanctions to paralyse the Russian economy, with the view to penalize President Putin for his Ukrainian invasion. The sanctions look to pressurize President Putin to renounce what he calls “special military operation” to “demilitarize” and “denazify” Ukraine.
“What we know is that Russia signed up to multiple agreements they simply don’t comply with. So there needs to be hard levers. Of course, sanctions are a hard lever,” Truss said.
“Those sanctions should only come off with a full ceasefire and withdrawal, but also commitments that there will be no further aggression. And also, there’s the opportunity to have snapback sanctions if there is further aggression in the future. That is a real lever that I think can be used,” Truss added.
The British government has said that till now it has imposed sanctions on banks with total assets of 500 billion pounds and oligarchs and their family members with a net worth of over 150 billion pounds.
Truss also said that the Ukraine crisis has brought Britain and the European Union closer after the relationship became strained in the aftermath of Brexit.
“One of the points I would make about this crisis is we have worked very, very closely with the European Union. Of course, there are some areas with which we have differences with the EU. But fundamentally, we are all democratic nations, we all believe in freedom and the right of people to select their own governments and we are very much united in the fight,” she further said.
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