Russia must be hit with maximum level of sanctions, says Liz Truss

Russia must be hit with the “maximum level” of sanctions over the atrocities in Ukraine, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said as she pressured European allies to go further.

The Cabinet minister today called for more weapons of the type Kyiv has called for to be supplied as she criticised Western money flowing into Russian President’s Vladimir Putin’s “war machine”. Ms Truss hit out at the “butchery” and cited evidence of rape and indiscriminate killing of civilians in Bucha, the Ukrainian town where Moscow’s troops have been pushed back from.

Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, she said she had discussed how the UK can take the “maximum approach” to supplying weapons with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

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“The idea that we should wait for something else bad to happen is just completely wrong. The worst has already happened, we’ve already seen appalling atrocities committed in Ukraine with complete impunity,” she told a press conference. “That is why we want to go to the maximum level of sanctions with our allies and partners and that is why we are pulling the stops out in terms of supplying Ukraine with the support they need to end this appalling war.”

Ms Truss urged allies to commit to “a tough new wave of sanctions” ahead of meetings of G7 and Nato foreign ministers later this week in Brussels. “The reality is that money is still flowing from the West into Putin’s war machine – and that has to stop,” Ms Truss said.

She said she would be working with allies to go further banning Russian ships from Western ports, cracking down on Russian banks, going after industries “filling Putin’s war chest, like gold” and to agree “a clear timetable to