LUXEMBOURG — The European Union approved its largest-ever round of sanctions listings against Russia on Monday, targeting nearly 1,600 individuals and businesses tied to Moscow’s war effort as EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg, DW and Al Jazeera reported.
“This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote online, adding that more than half of the new listings are connected to the production chain for ballistic missiles. “We are making it significantly harder, slower and more expensive for Russia to produce the weapons it uses to kill Ukrainians,” she said.
Besides the military-industrial listings, the package names another 77 people and groups linked to what the EU regards as illegal elections in occupied parts of Ukraine, DW reported. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who missed the Luxembourg meeting because of a party conference in Berlin, called the measures an “unprecedented sanction blow” to President Vladimir Putin’s war. “The message is clear: Russia cannot and will not win this war,” he said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the West should go further. “This is the moment when the entire West … should show Russia and Putin that it is ready to pursue a policy of containing Russia by even more decisive means,” he told the Warsaw Security Forum, saying he would go to Brussels to urge European partners to consider increasing sanctions.
The move puts Europe at odds with Washington, which on Friday eased sanctions on Russian diesel. “This deal doesn’t help, neither the crisis of the oil products, nor the unity within the transatlantic community when it concerns Russia,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said, according to The Guardian. “Our way is to increase pressure because we already see how it works.”
Sources: DW, Al Jazeera, The Guardian
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