Britain on Wednesday announced new sanctions against Russian figures, including Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denys Manturov and Arkady Gostev, the director of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service, which recruited criminals to send them to fight in Ukraine, AFP and the Guardian reported.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, who according to London is in charge of equipping deployed troops, is one of 22 Russian officials hit by the sanctions, which include an asset freeze and a travel ban to the UK.

Local governors in regions where a “significant number” of conscripts were called up following Putin’s late September announcement of a “partial” mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russian reservists to fight in Ukraine have also been targeted, according to Britain’s Foreign Office.

Among the 1st governors and heads of regions are officials from Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kalmykia.

“The Russian regime’s decision to partially mobilize Russian citizens was a desperate attempt to destroy brave Ukrainians who are defending their territory. It is a failure,” said British Foreign Minister James Cleverley.

“Today we are imposing sanctions on those who carried out this recruitment and sent thousands of Russian citizens to fight in (Vladimir) Putin’s illegal and hateful war,” he added.

Arkady Gostev, director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, and Dmytro Bezrukikh, head of the regional penitentiary service, are among the 22 officials who have been sanctioned.

According to British diplomacy, the two men worked closely with the leadership of Wagner’s paramilitary group to reinforce the troops with prisoners from Russian prisons.

“They recruited criminals, including criminals and sexual predators, in exchange for a pardon from President Putin,” the British Foreign Office said.

London, one of Kyiv’s main backers after the February 24 Russian invasion, imposed sanctions that the government says target “1,200 individuals and more than 120 entities, freezing the assets of 19 Russian banks (…) since the invasion began.

The total amount of Russian assets frozen by Britain is 18.4 billion pounds (21.3 billion euros) as part of British sanctions against Moscow, according to figures released in mid-November by the Treasury.