Taiwan Condemns Russian Action in Ukraine, Declares Sanctions on Moscow

Taiwan is going to join "democratic countries" in imposing sanctions on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, the government announced on Friday.

"We very harshly condemn such an act of invasion and will join democratic countries to jointly impose sanctions," Premier Su Tseng-chang told reporters in Taipei without giving further details.

Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua affirmed that the island will "harshly scrutinise" exports to Russia and "coordinate" with unspecified allies on further actions.

Furthermore, Taiwan's foreign ministry said it will "coordinate closely with the United States and other like-minded countries to adopt appropriate measures in order to free Ukraine from the horrors of war."

Russian troops launched attacks on Ukraine Thursday morning after President Vladimir Putin authorized what he called a special military operation despite international calls for a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

In response, the United States, Britain, Australia, Japan, Germany, Canada, South Korea and many more countries announced heavy sanctions against Russia.

On her part, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova emphasized that Russia’s special operation in Ukraine is not the beginning of a war.

“This is not a beginning of war. It prevents a global military confrontation and puts an end to the war that has been underway [in Donbass],” Zakharova said.

“The war was waged on different fronts: we experienced the pressure of sanctions and on the information front we saw some monstrous fakes against us one cannot read about in any textbook,” she added. “Also, there was a psychological war – attempts were made to set our people and our elite against each other, and so on.”