UK bans console controllers being shipped for Putin's forces to pilot drones (2025)

The UK has banned the export of video game controllers to Russia to stop them being used to pilot killer drones in Ukraine.

New measures announced today by the Foreign Office focus on cutting off the Kremlin’s access to British tech as its military continues to batter civilians three years on from the invasion.

This morning, a Russian missile assault on Kyiv left at least ten people dead in one of the worst attacks on the Ukrainian capital since the war began.

Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs: ‘Today, we have announced new sanctions, including the shocking repurposing of gaming console controllers to kill Ukrainians by Russian.

A social media post from the Foreign Office said controllers made for video game consoles are being used by the Russian army to direct their drones on the front line.

Separate measures would ‘cut Russia’s war machine off from innovative British tech, world-leading software, and close loopholes exploited by Putin’s cronies’, the post said.

The move comes a day after the Kremlin announced sanctions on 15 British MPs and six members of the House of Lords, banning them from entering Russia.

They included long-serving Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael and new Labour MP Johanna Baxter, who has campaigned for the return of Ukrainian children who have been taken from their homes.

Baxter said: ‘The abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia is one of the most heart-wrenching and indefensible crimes of this war, which the worldcannot ignore.

‘And sanctioning me, as they just have done, the Russian Government will not silence me.’

Lib Dem defence spokesperson Helen Morgan, who was also banned from Russia, said she would ‘wear this retaliatory sanction as a badge of honour’.

In the House of Commons this morning, Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said the sanctions showed the parliamentarians are ‘on the right side of history’.

The European Union also banned the export of video game accessories to Russia earlier this year.

US President Donald Trump has claimed a deal to end the war in Ukraine is ‘very close’, but attacked Zelensky in a post on his website Truth Social yesterday.

He said the Ukrainian leader’s comment that he would not recognise the occupation of Crimea ‘will do nothing but prolong the “killing field”’, adding: ‘He has nothing to boast about!’

In the House of Commons this morning, Doughty said: ‘The UK’s position regarding Ukrainian sovereignty is well known, and our position has not changed.

‘We do not recognise Russian sovereignty over any territory, including Crimea, and when, how, and on what terms this war comes to an end can only be decided by negotiations with Ukraine.’

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top negotiator Steve Witkoff abruptly pulled out of Ukraine talks in London on Monday shortly before they were due to take place.

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