Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

Rule Changes

Designating authority for the May 2026 package

Russia recruits women from Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America with promises of catering and hospitality work, then puts most of them on a Shahed drone assembly line in Tatarstan. On May 5, 2026, the United Kingdom became the first country to apply its human-trafficking sanctions regime to that pipeline, designating 35 people and entities tied to the Alabuga Start programme and to firms in Russia, China, and Thailand that supply drone components.

Updated 2 hours ago

Rule Changes

Issuer and policy owner of UK foreign-policy sanctions designations

Britain just named names in Syria’s ugliest post-Assad story: who helped kill civilians, and who paid for the machinery of abuse. The UK’s new package freezes assets, bans travel, and tries to cut sanctioned figures off from doing business through the UK.

Updated Dec 19, 2025