Twelve months of war, ten rounds of European sanctions against Russia to try to run out of fuel its war machine.
The ambassadors of the Twenty-seven gave the green light last night to one more round of restrictive measures against Moscow, “the most powerful and far-reaching sanctions ever adopted to help Ukraine win the war,” the Swedish presidency of the Council of the Union announced after twelve hours of negotiations. The new sanctions package includes measures against various bodies that support the war in Ukraine, distribute disinformation or provide drones to Russia.
“The EU is united on the side of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, ”she stressed in the announcement posted on Twitter at ten o’clock at night. The struggle of Poland in the final stretch of the negotiation extended the talks for its approval for many more hours than expected and seemed to frustrate the plans to announce the new punishment on a day as symbolic as the first anniversary of the war.
Since Brussels presented its proposal ten days ago to deepen the economic and political punishment of Moscow, the objective is that it was approved, at the latest, yesterday. The United States did the same, but the European agreement got stuck due to Warsaw’s efforts to toughen the measures. Disagreements over the synthetic rubber quota exempt from the trade veto pitted Warsaw against Rome and Berlin.
While the Swedish presidency of the Council of the EU was trying to find a solution to this and other issues, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, declared in Kyiv that the proposal seemed “too weak”. The atmosphere became rare, the negotiations ran aground and until the evening, written confirmation was not received from all the delegations that they supported the final compromise.
With this tenth round of sanctions, the EU has its sights set primarily on Russia’s military and technological sector, with export restrictions valued at 11 billion euros. Thus, the export of almost 50 electronic components likely to be used for civil and military purposes will be banned. New measures have also been adopted to prosecute the evasion of sanctions. And, for the first time, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are being sanctioned for their support of Moscow.
For the sake of the agreement, the Swedish presidency promised to start negotiating a new package of sanctions against Belarus from this very Monday. He also proposed opening the debate within the G-7 to ban the diamond trade with Russia, an initiative that so far has not gone ahead due mainly to Belgium, and to study measures against the Russian nuclear sector.
The plan was for the tenth round of European sanctions against Russia to have been approved yesterday, preferably before the arrival of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in Tallinn, where she participated together with the NATO Secretary General in the events for the anniversary of Estonia’s independence from Russia. It happened 105 years ago, although “the determination to remain free and independent was tested again and again” until “it was reinstated in 1991,” Von der Leyen stressed in Tallinn. That “Europe is not geography, but a unity of principles”, as former President Lennart Meri said, “is a truth that Putin has never understood”.
“The Russian president started this war and it is the Russian president who has to end this war now, we will stand by Ukraine’s side for as long as possible,” Stoltenberg told Moscow. “Some fear that our support for Ukraine will trigger an escalation. But there are no risk-free options. And the biggest risk of all is that President Putin wins. Because the message he and other authoritarian leaders would get is that they can use force to get what they want. That would make the world more dangerous, and us, more vulnerable.”