On Thursday 29 January, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, condemned the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Ukraine as a result of Russian strikes on the country’s electricity and heating infrastructure.
“They [the Russians] are bombing Ukrainians, trying (...) to freeze them to surrender”, she told the Foreign Affairs Council. “(...) it is a very hard winter and Ukrainians are really suffering. There is a humanitarian catastrophe coming there”, she warned, as temperatures plummeted to -20°.
On her arrival at the Foreign Affairs Council, European Commissioner Marta Kos announced that in recent days the EU had supplied 500 generators to Ukraine and that a further 500 would soon be delivered. The Spanish minister, José Manuel Albares, explained that his country, through the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), was acquiring generators worth one million euros and was launching energy aid to provide electricity and heating for 28,000 Ukrainians.
On the same day, the European Commission announced that, in collaboration with the European Investment Bank, it was providing a further €50 million to Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company. This funding will support the country’s energy system. This additional loan, granted under the Ukraine facility, brings the EU’s total support for emergency gas purchases for the winter of 2025–2026 to €977 million.
The EU High Representative also proposed the creation of a working group that would bring together teams from Brussels and Kyiv to better coordinate energy support.
Faced with attacks on civilian infrastructure, which, according to Ms Kallas, accounted for 93% of the targets of Russian bombardments in October, the ministers called for sanctions to be stepped up.
“We need to put more pressure on Russia. This is the only way to stop the killings”, said the Swedish minister, Maria Malmer Stenergard, as the EU considered its twentieth package of sanctions, which it hopes to adopt on the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion on 24 February. A few days ago, together with her Finnish counterpart, Ms Stenergard called for new restrictive measures targeting maritime services, fertilisers and luxury goods (see EUROPE 13785/21). Additional sanctions against the shadow fleet and its ecosystem are also under consideration, as is the fight against sanctions evasion, particularly in the financial sector.
The Estonian Foreign Minister, Margus Tsahkna, has called for a coordinated visa ban on Russians who fought in Ukraine. “We have nearly a million fighters in Russia. They are mainly criminals. These are very dangerous people. And I am certain – and we have information – that most of them will come to Europe after the war. And Europe is not ready for that”, he warned. Kaja Kallas pointed out that many ministers had supported this proposal.
The High Representative also indicated that the EU was going to add Russia to its blacklist for money laundering, “because it is using these means to finance this war”. The delegated act relating to this measure, which was published in the Official Journal of the EU on Friday 9 January, came into force on Thursday 29 January. This follows the European Commission's decision last December to add Russia to the European list of high-risk jurisdictions in terms of the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, following an evaluation process of third countries that are not sanctioned by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). In February 2023, the FATF suspended the Russian Federation from its membership, but never included it on its blacklist. The European Parliament has asked the European Commission to carry out its own review (see EUROPE 13677/9).
See the legal document: https://aeur.eu/f/kh8 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with Anne Damiani)