KYIV, 23 February 2022, (TON): Western allies of Ukraine have spoken out against Putin’s decision to deploy troops to two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine after recognizing them as independent .

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his country would immediately impose hard economic sanctions on Russia.

Johnson told media “we will immediately institute a package of economic sanctions.”

The sanctions, he said, would be “targeted not just at entities in Donbass and Luhansk and Donetsk, but in Russia itself, targeting Russian economic interests as hard as we can.”

Putin will find he has gravely miscalculated if Russia invades Ukraine, Johnson said, adding that Moscow appeared to be bent on a full scale invasion.

Johnson chaired a meeting of Britain’s national emergency security committee early.

Johnson told media after the meeting “I think that the tragedy of the present situation is that President Putin has surrounded himself with like-minded advisers who tell him that Ukraine is not a proper country. And I think that he is going to find that he has gravely miscalculated.”

Unlike most of its Western neighbors, Italy has historically relatively friendly ties with Putin, backed by strong, long-standing investments by Italian corporations in Russia.