‘Russian money’ in London, time to act on Yorkshire diplomat’s warning over laundering as Ukraine crisis intensifies – The Yorkshire Post says

All Western governments are facing a similar predicament and it is vital that Nato and the West co-ordinates its response in a bid to exert maximum influence on President Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin dictatorship.

Ukraine: Time for Britain to end ‘corrosive addiction to Russian money’, writes top former NATO diplomat David Hobbs

Where Mr Johnson and his Government could, and should, go further and faster is on the question of economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs and, specifically, their financial interests in the UK.

If it is true that it could take several weeks for the limited moves set out by Mr Johnson on Tuesday to take effect, then the Government and Parliament needs to show greater haste – time is not on democracy’s side.

But the Tory leader’s assertion at Prime Minister’s Questions that no country is doing more than Britain “to root out corrupt Russian money” is totally at odds with today’s analysis in The Yorkshire Post by former senior Nato diplomat David Hobbs who lives in Ilkley.

Now CEO of the Atlantic Treaty Association, he is clear that the UK “must deal with its own equally corrosive addiction to Russian money” so not to undermine “otherwise commendable efforts to embrace a new strategic reality” – namely President Putin’s expansionist and undemocratic intentions.

Mr Hobbs also cites Germany’s decision to suspend the opening of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as evidence of the type of responses that need to be put in place alongside sanctions, which he describes as “a mixed bag” so far, and other measures.

Given his experience as a former secretary-general of the Nato parliamentary assembly, this is objective insight that Mr Johnson – and the West – simply cannot afford to overlook if President Putin and Russia are to be thwarted before all-out war breaks out.

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