EU Plans to Expand 17th Russia Sanctions Package with More Punishments

The EU Foreign Affairs Council is to approve the 17th package of EU sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, 20 May, and three more packages of sanctions in addition to it: on Russia's hybrid activities, human rights violations and the use of chemical weapons, an EU official involved in the preparation of these documents said.

The Gaze reports on this with reference to European Pravda.

These plans were also confirmed by several EU diplomats in Brussels, with whom the publication spoke.

"On Tuesday, it is planned to approve a number of comprehensive sanctions packages. This will be the widest-ever simultaneous introduction of different types of EU sanctions against Russia, of which there are four," the source said.

‘In total, we expect more than 130 individual sanctions to be adopted on 20 May, as well as sanctions against the Russian military industry and its third-country suppliers, disinformation propaganda and the Russian shadow fleet,’ he added.

The first package of sanctions to be approved by the EU Council on 20 May is, in fact, the 17th package of sanctions imposed by the EU in response to Russia's aggression against Ukraine.

"The 17th package of sanctions will include 75 individual sanctions, as well as about 200 vessels of the Russian “shadow fleet”. And this is the largest package of sanctions against Russia to date against ships," the EU official said. 

According to him, the second area of sanctions against Russia, which is scheduled to be approved on 20 May, is a package of sanctions on Russia's hybrid activities under the hybrid sanctions regime, which will include 27 items and sectoral measures. 

The third is a package on human rights violations in Russia under the human rights sanctions regime, which will include 28 individual sanctions items.

And the fourth is a package of sanctions for Russia's use of chemical weapons of mass destruction as a means of warfare in Ukraine under the chemical weapons sanctions regime. 

According to European Pravda's source, all four sanctions packages have been agreed upon at the level of EU ambassadors, and no state - including Hungary - has objected to their adoption.

As The Gaze reported earlier, European Union ambassadors have officially approved the bloc's 17th package of sanctions against Russia, significantly expanding restrictive measures in response to Moscow's ongoing war against Ukraine and its global destabilising activities.

The newly adopted package includes sweeping sanctions aimed at Russia's so-called ‘shadow fleet’ - a network of nearly 200 vessels, including oil tankers used to circumvent existing embargoes and sustain the Kremlin's war economy.