Britain will immediately impose hard economic sanctions on Russia after President Vladimir Putin ordered the deployment of troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, Prime Minister Boris Johnson says.
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"We will immediately institute a package of economic sanctions," Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
The sanctions, he said, would be "targeted not just at entities in Donbass and Luhansk and Donetsk, but in Russia itself - targeting Russian economic interests as hard as we can."
Putin will find he has "gravely miscalculated" if Russia invades Ukraine, Johnson said, adding that Moscow appeared to be bent on a full scale invasion.
Johnson chaired a meeting of Britain's national emergency security committee early on Tuesday.
"I think that the tragedy of the present situation is that President Putin has surrounded himself with like-minded advisors who tell him that Ukraine is not a proper country. And I think that he is going to find that he has gravely miscalculated," Johnson told reporters after the meeting.
Australian Associated Press
