Sanctions against Russia over Ukraine invasion are meant to 'bring down the Putin regime,' says UK

• Sanctions on Russia are meant to bring down the government there, a UK spokesperson made clear.
• A package of measures by Western nations began wreaking havoc on the Russian economy Monday.

Western sanctions on Russia are designed "bring down the Putin regime", a spokesman for the UK prime minister said Monday, as the measures began to bite on the Russian economy.

A group of nations, including the US, Canada, the UK and the European Union, announced over the weekend the expulsion of some Russian banks from the SWIFT transaction network, and moved to isolate the Russian Central Bank from its foreign reserves.

A spokesman for Boris Johnson took a firm line describing the measures to journalists in London on Monday, as he warned UK companies doing legal of financial work for Russian entities to reconsider.

"The prime minister's view is that Putin's regime, and Putin, must be treated like a pariah state and businesses should think very carefully if they are still continuing to do anything that props up the Putin regime," he said.

"The prime minister is very clear we do not want to do anything that harms Russian people. But the measures we are introducing, and others around the world are introducing, are designed to bring down the Putin regime.

"We think anyone who is actively seeking to support any element of Putin's regime should think very carefully about what they are doing… it is important that everyone thinks about who they may be even inadvertently supporting."

Asked whether the West was seeking to remove Putin from office, the spokesman stressed the sanctions were to "stymie the Russian war machine as it attempts to subjugate a democratic European country."

Shares in Russia's biggest bank, Sberbank, plunged almost 80% Monday, and the ruble crashed to a record low.

Two of Russia's most prominent oligarchs — Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Fridman — have now spoken out against the conflict.

Fridman, who is one of Russia's richest men, called for an end to "bloodshed" in a letter to employees, while Deripaska called for peace talks to begin "as fast as possible" in a post on the messaging app Telegram, the Guardian reported.

Meanwhile Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the Evening Standard and a crossbench peer, made a personal appeal to Putin to stop the war. Lebedev, who was made a peer by Johnson, has been criticised for failing to contribute to the House of Lords, Insider reported last week.

—Evening Standard (@standardnews) February 28, 2022

Writing in his newspaper, Lebedev said: "As a Russian citizen I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters. As a British citizen I ask you to save Europe from war."

Western officials appear increasingly confident that Putin has been caught off-guard by the allied response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as a result of his increased isolation.

Johnson, who was due to visit Poland and Estonia on Tuesday as a show of solidarity with NATO's easternmost members, told a meeting of the UK cabinet that Putin made a "colossal mistake" by choosing to invade.

During a meeting Monday morning Johnson also said Putin "underestimated Western unity and the strength of the sanctions his action could lead to", the spokesman said..

"The Prime Minister said Putin must fail in his attempts to subjugate Ukraine and the UK would continue its efforts in three main areas to achieve this: economically, diplomatically and militarily."

A former US ambassador to Russia said Sunday that Putin was becoming "increasingly unhinged."