EU Keeps Pressure on Russia with Six-Month Sanctions Extension

The European Union has extended sanctions against individuals and organizations linked to Russia's war in Ukraine for another six months.

The Gaze reports on it, referring to Reuters.

EU member states have agreed to extend restrictive measures, including freezing bank accounts and banning travel to the European Union. The sanctions list includes more than 2,500 individuals and legal entities.

“We just extended our sanctions on Russia,” said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, on the social media platform X. 

She also informed that at the same time, work is being completed on the nineteenth package of restrictions, which provides for additional restrictions on the sale of Russian oil, the use of shadow oil tankers, and the activities of banks.

“We’ll keep choking off the cash for Putin’s war,” Kallas added.

The EU applies two main sanction schemes against Russia: the first is personal restrictions on specific individuals and companies, and the second is sectoral measures, which include restrictions on Russian oil prices and the freezing of central bank assets.

Previously, the extension of sanctions was sometimes complicated by the demands of individual countries, such as Hungary, to exclude certain individuals. This time, there were no political obstacles to the extension of these measures.

As The Gaze informed earlier, Italy calls for new sanctions against Russia to increase pressure on President Putin and promote the start of peace talks on the conflict in Ukraine.