The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Thursday from Kiev together with the Ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelenski, new sanctions of the European Union against Russia for the first anniversary of the invasion, next February 24.
«We are making (Russian President Vladimir) Putin pay for his atrocious war,» she said from the Ukrainian capital, where some 15 commissioners have gone to discuss Ukraine’s progress towards accession face to face. Von der Leyen thus promised that Europe will increase pressure on Moscow and that the tenth round of restrictions will be ready by the date marking 12 months after the attack.
«We will present with our G7 partners a price cap on Russian oil products. By February 24, exactly one year since the invasion began, we aim to have the tenth package of sanctions in place,» the head of the European executive has formally announced.
In this sense, she indicated that the EU had already warned before the war began of the economic repercussions that the invasion would have and today Russia «is paying a high price» and seeing how its economy is going back a generation.
Likewise, Von der Leyen stressed that the bloc is studying how to use the goods confiscated from Russia to use them for the reconstruction of the country and announced a new international center to collect evidence of the Russian crime of aggression, with a view to judging those responsible and ensuring accountability.
In this way, Brussels has responded to the demands of Zelenski who at the same press conference lamented that Europe has «slowed down the speed of sanctions», while Russia is «accelerating» its adaptation to the measures. «The more we do, the closer we will be to the defeat of Russian aggression,» the Ukrainian leader said.
In a conversation with journalists in Brussels before the trip to Ukraine, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, referred to this new round of sanctions assuring that the EU is studying restrictions to cut all technological links between Russia and the West, in order to reduce its capacity to exploit natural resources and manufacture weapons.
«We have to look for things that are sanctionable because almost everything has already been done,» said the head of European diplomacy, while not specifying whether the tenth round of sanctions could affect the Russian nuclear sector.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
