The U.K.’s Boris Johnson announced today London’s particular contribution to the G7 anti-Russia clavern. The official release, entitled “U.K. Sanctions Russian Gold Exports,” poses yet another sanction, and one where the U.K. has managed to secure the considered cooperation of the U.S., Canada and Japan in abstaining from the purchase of Russian gold. The stated intention is to fully decouple Russia from the international financial and economic system, and Johnson goes out of his way to emphasize London’s leading role in this insanity.
“New exports of Russian gold will no longer be allowed to be enter [sic] the U.K., Canada, U.S. and Japan thanks to tough new measures to be announced at the G7 Summit starting today [Sunday 26th June] designed ratchet [sic] up the pressure on Putin’s war machine.”
The two illiteracies in the first sentence in the official government announcement, perhaps even wilder than the Prime Minister’s hair-stylings, add to the impression of increasingly hasty and seat-of-the-pants actions by our Western statesmen.
London’s press release explains: “London is a major global gold trading hub and U.K. sanctions, which will be the first of their kind to be implemented against Russia anywhere in the world, will have a huge impact on Putin’s ability to raise funds. Given’s [sic] London central role in the international gold trade and parallel U.S., Japanese and Canadian action, this measure will have global reach, shutting the commodity out of formal international markets. At the G7, the Prime Minister will urge other leaders to join us to further isolate Russia from the international financial system.” Evidently, the previous steps to isolate Russia—with the expansion of Russia’s trade with China and India, and the strengthening of the ruble—has been missing Boris’s gold sanction. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-sanctions-russian-gold-exports
