Graham Phillips in 2018 as he was escorted by police officers after disrupting a press conference in London. Credit… Peter Nicholls/Reuters
A British citizen had his assets frozen by the UK Foreign Office on Tuesday as the government announced a series of new sanctions on people, companies and others who support the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Graham Phillips, 43, a pro-Kremlin blogger who was born in Nottingham, England, moved to Ukraine more than a decade ago and has spent the past few years filming and promoting videos from the country, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers to a YouTube. account that has praised the Russian invasion. He briefly worked as a freelancer for Russian state broadcaster RT, which many Western governments have accused of being a tool of the Kremlin and spreading disinformation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in announcing the freezing of Mr. Philip, characterized him as “a video blogger who has produced and published media content that supports and promotes actions and policies that destabilize Ukraine and undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine.”
Mr. Phillips said in an email that he had not been given advance notice of the decision and questioned the legality of the measures.
“Can someone please explain to me how a Briton can be put on a British sanctions list with no chance to defend himself, no real charges against him, just because the UK government doesn’t like his work? ” Mr. Phillips wrote.
The move to punish Mr Phillips came as Britain’s Foreign Office announced a series of new sanctions on Tuesday targeting a number of people for supporting the Putin regime, including officials installed by Russia in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
Others on the expanded list included Russia’s justice minister and deputy justice minister, two nephews of oligarchs and some Syrian citizens who the Foreign Ministry said were “undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity” through recruitment of mercenaries in Syria.
The UK has sanctioned more than 1,000 people and 100 companies since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February.
Mr. Phillips, who moved to Ukraine in 2010, was an English teacher for a time and wrote extensively about his experience in the country, including detailing his own exploits in brothels and writing about sex tourism in publications that have since have been deleted.
When the Maidan protest movement over the future direction of Ukraine began in 2013, he began documenting the scenes and, despite his inexperience, turned to making videos and reporting on social media from the conflict, building up a large number of followers.
In 2014, he became a RT freelancer. He has praised Russia’s annexation of Crimea and regularly expressed his support for pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, framing his videos as counterpoints to the Western narrative.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February, Mr. Phillips has been documenting the war from the Russian side. This spring, Mr. Phillips interviewed and released a video of Aiden Aslin, a British man who joined the Ukrainian army in Mariupol and was later captured by Russian forces.
Speaking in Parliament after the video was released, Robert Jenrick, the lawmaker representing Mr. Aslin said the interview was a “flagrant breach” of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit broadcasting the interrogation of prisoners of war.
Mr. Jenrick also said that Mr. Phillips was “in danger of being prosecuted for war crimes.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson later said he “echoed the sentiments about those broadcasting propaganda messages”. The clip was later removed.
— Megan Specia and Euan Ward