MOSCOW: Russia has announced sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor and the UK ministers, who have severely opposed Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, AFP reported.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor is seeking the arrest of Russian President Putin.
Moscow Sanctions UK Ministers, ICC Prosecutor: Officials
In a statement, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the “solid military help from UK” to Ukraine and “the aggressive execution… of a hostile anti-Moscow policy”.
The development came as a UK-led group of European nations said on Friday it would supply around 90 million pounds of air defense equipment to help Kyiv defend itself against Russia. Reuters reported this includes a 56-million-pound agreement with the Norwegian defense firm Kongsberg to supply anti-drone systems, which are used to sense and destroy drones. As per media reports, the International Fund for Ukraine — a group of nations including Norway, Britain, Holland, Sweden and Denmark— has also agreed two other agreements for air defense equipment, which to be disclosed at a later date.
Similarly, Washington has approved sending F-16s to Kyiv from the Netherlands and Denmark to defend against Russia as soon as pilot training program is completed, a US official revealed on Thursday.
Kyiv has actively sought the F-16 jets to help it counter Russian air dominance, Reuters reported. The US gave the Netherlands and Denmark official assurances that Washington will expedite approval of all essential third-party transfer requests of fighter jets to Kyiv so that it will get F-16 jets when the pilots are completely trained.
The Netherlands and Denmark, the two nations leading the training coalition, had recently urged for those assurances.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had sent letters to his Dutch and Danish counterparts assuring them that the requests would be accepted, the official added.
