Ukraine: EU renews sanctions against Russia

Brussels – As planned, the EU extended the sanctions already in place against Russia for another six months. After the political agreement reached by the leaders of the 27 member states at last week’s summit (26 June) and the approval by ambassadors at the Coreper on Friday, the formal green light was given this morning by the Foreign Affairs Council through a written procedure. No one got in the way, not even Hungary and Slovakia.

Therefore, the Union renewed for another six months the 17 sectoral sanctions packages and sanctions against specific individuals and entities imposed against Moscow since February 2022, when the large-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The deadline would have been 31 July. The measures will now have to be renewed by the member states by 31 January 2026.

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With today’s renewal, the approximately EUR 210 billion in Russian Central Bank assets frozen by Euroclear in institutions under EU jurisdiction are also still frozen, pending the question of what to do with them (there are still many doubts as to the legality – and political expediency – of the direct confiscation of the assets, as well as that of the extra-profits they generate).

In the meantime, Brussels is working on the 18th package, which is intended to hit the Kremlin’s shadow fleet and the Federation’s energy exports even harder and has been in development for weeks. According to EU sources, the Commission will formally put it on the table of the member states only after a bilateral meeting between Ursula von der Leyen and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (concerned about
Russian gas supplies to Bratislava), expected in the coming days.

However, the fate of the measure that the EU executive wanted to place at the center of the new round of restrictive measures —  lowering of the price cap on Russian crude —  is much more uncertain as it is a decision taken within the G7, and would therefore require approval from the other group partners to make it a reality. However, on this point, there is skepticism in the White House of Donald Trump, as well as among the 27 member states.