The US and the European Union are in talks to deliver another set of sanctions against Russia to mark the second anniversary of the Ukrainian war with the proper attention it demands.
Western allies met in Brussels to discuss possible coordinated sanctions and the impact of sanctions currently on. Reuters spoke with a senior US official present at the meeting, who said that “many of us are prepared to roll out quite robust anniversary packages.”
The US will work to counter sanctions evasion in order to make sure that Russia doesn’t get access to ban goods and revenue. The new sanctions may also include more action against state-owned institutions, people and companies, according to former Director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control John Smith. Currently the US can’t send more military aid to Ukraine, as funds run out and the Republican-led House of Representatives has shunned down proposal for additional funding.
Meanwhile, the EU held a first meeting on its 13th sanctions package. The new package will not have new industry ban, but it will blacklist around 200 people and entities more. According to an EU official listened by Reuters, “all delegations expressed their support to the proposed package, except one who requested a bit more time to analyse the content of the proposals.” The lone delegation that thought about the proposal is allegedly the Hungarian one.
Overall, new sanctions by Western allies, the US, the EU and the UK will try to tackle loopholes in current sanctions, by targeting circumvention routes, possibly with action against the shadow fleet of tankers that ships Russian oil breaking the sanctions on the issue.
