Eight senior Russian security officials and the oil and gas sectors will be targeted in the first round of Australian sanctions, with the prime minister vowing to go after anyone “aiding and abetting” the invasion of Ukraine.
Scott Morrison met with the cabinet’s national security committee on Wednesday before declaring the Russian government was “behaving like thugs and bullies” and there “must be consequences for Russia’s actions”.
Morrison characterised the sanctions as only the first step of Australia’s response and indicated Australian security agencies were on alert for possible counter-actions by Russia such as espionage and cyber attacks.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, earlier this week recognised the independence of two Russian-controlled territories in east Ukraine and sent in what he called a “peacekeeping” mission.
Australia will begin by imposing travel bans and targeted financial sanctions on eight members of the Russian Federation’s security council – a body that is chaired by Putin and has 12 permanent members including the foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
Morrison did not specify which eight members would be sanctioned, but said the body had provided Putin with policy advice and justification leading to Monday’s presidential decree that “fundamentally undermines Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Australia will also amend its existing sanctions regulations to cover the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, prohibiting trade in sectors including transport, energy, telecommunications, oil, gas and mineral reserves.
The government says it will broaden the scope of people and entities that Australia can list for sanctions to include those of “strategic and economic significance to Russia”.
Australian individuals and entities will be banned from doing business with Rossiya Bank, Promsvyazbank, IS Bank, Genbank and the Black Sea Bank for Development and Reconstruction.
This is in addition to restrictions on Australians investing in the Russian state development bank VEB, according to a statement issued by the Australian government late on Wednesday.
Morrison acknowledged Australia did not have a large volume of trade with Russia compared with the US and Europe.
But he said it was “important that we play our part in the broader international community to ensure that those who are financing and profiting from an autocratic and authoritarian regime that is invading its neighbour should have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide”.
“Australians always stand up to bullies,” he said. “This is only the start of this process.”
The announcement follows moves by the US, the UK and the EU to introduce a first round of sanctions. The US president, Joe Biden, said he was determined to “cut off Russia’s government from western financing”.
Major parties united
The major Australian political parties are united on the issue. Senior Labor opposition frontbenchers were briefed by senior officials on Wednesday afternoon.
The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, said he supported the sanctions because Australians should stand united against “aggressive Russian action which undermines security in the region and indeed the world”.
“The aggressor here is Vladimir Putin,” Albanese said in a press conference alongside the shadow foreign minister, Penny Wong.
“Calling it peacekeeping is quite farcical. It is anything but. This a peace-breaking intervention in violation of international law.”
After weeks of Morrison telling voters Labor would be weak on national security, Albanese said: “We believe it is important when it comes to national security that we express a common view on behalf of the Australian people.”
The Greens, too, condemned Putin’s “military aggression” against Ukraine “as we condemn all military aggression”.
The “peacekeeping” mission means Russia will formally occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory for a second time after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Putin said on Monday that he saw Ukraine as “an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space”.
“These are our comrades, those dearest to us – not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties,” the Russian president said.
Putin had been seeking a range of security guarantees from the west, including curbing the expansion of Nato and a promise that Ukraine would never be able to join the military alliance.
But Morrison said on Wednesday accepting such demands from Russia would reduce Ukraine to “a nation in name only”.
The prime minister said the Chinese government’s language about respecting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity had improved over the past week, but Beijing should go further in denouncing Moscow’s actions. He said the Russian government “should be called out as thugs and bullies”.
The top official at Ukraine’s embassy in Canberra said his government was grateful for Australia’s sanctions.
Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, the chargé d’affaires at the embassy, told Guardian Australia the impact of the sanctions would “depend on the unity and determination of the international community” to react to Russian aggression.
“We believe that expansion of the sanctions by our international partners is needed in order to deter the Kremlin from further escalation,” he said on Wednesday.
Ukrainians ‘top of the pile’ for visa applications
Morrison said he had instructed the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, to put 430 Ukrainians citizens who have applied for an Australian visa at “the top of the pile” for a decision.
The government was looking at various options for humanitarian support, including through skilled migration and student categories, he said.
Any Ukrainian nationals in Australia who have a visa due to expire by 30 June will be granted an automatic six-month extension.
On Tuesday, the Australian government directed its officials to leave Ukraine “due to the increased risk”. Officials have been deployed to eastern Poland and Romania to provide assistance to Australians who are trying to leave Ukraine.
Morrison said Russia’s ambassador to Australia, Alexey Pavlovsky, was being called to a meeting with the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra on Wednesday – but was not being expelled at this stage.
He said the Russian government was “an autocratic, authoritarian government that has forgotten what democracy is and what liberal democracy is”.
Pavlovsky denied last month that Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine’s border was a sign of aggression and said Australians should look beyond “comic book-style propaganda” about “liberal democracies versus autocracies”.
At the time, the Russian ambassador said it was wrong to portray Russia’s concerns about Nato’s eastward expansion as irrational and said any Australian sanctions would be a “gesture” with no impact on Moscow’s behaviour.
The Russian embassy in Canberra was contacted for comment.
