Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development, how sanctions against senior military personnel in Belarus for their role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine differ from sanctions targeted against Russian nationals; and whether her Department takes particular considerations into account when sanctioning Belarussian nationals.

On 1 March we announced a first tranche of sanctions against Belarusian individuals and organisations in response to the role the country is playing in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including facilitating the invasion from within its borders. Four senior defence officials and two military enterprises have been sanctioned with immediate effect under the UK's Russia sanctions regime. Individuals will be unable to travel to the UK and any UK-based assets will be frozen.

These designations are in addition to the wide-ranging measures we have already imposed on Belarus under our Belarus sanctions regime, which include sanctions on President Lukashenko and 117 other individuals and entities as well as trade, financial and aviation sanctions.

The Foreign Secretary has committed to going further. Our intention is to extend recent Russia sanctions to Belarus in due course. The Lukashenko regime will be made to feel the economic consequences for its support for Putin.