The High Representative of the Union, Kaja Kallas, announced on Monday 8 June that EU Foreign Ministers will discuss sanctions against more than 80 new individuals and entities next Monday, at their EU Council meeting in Luxembourg.
“For next week’s Foreign Affairs Council, my services have proposed more than 80 new listings targeting Russia’s military industrial complex, human rights violators, and propagandists. Brick by brick, we are collapsing the foundations of Russia’s war economy”, Ms Kallas stressed at the end of the informal meeting of Defence Ministers in Nicosia.
Asked about exports from an alumina refinery owned by a Russian company in Ireland, alumina allegedly used to produce weapons in Russia, the High Representative, who will travel to Ireland this Tuesday, said that the EU could examine the imposition of sanctions on alumina exports and their potential impact. “Our objective is truly to deprive Russia of funding it derives from various sources”, she recalled.
On arriving at the meeting, Irish Defence Minister Thomas Byrne confirmed that his country had launched, “a few weeks ago”, an investigation into this facility “which supplies countries other than Russia”. “As soon as results of this investigation are known, I am convinced government will discuss them with the European Commission”, he explained on arriving at the informal defence meeting in Cyprus. “We do not want to be involved in supplying Russia”, he added, recalling that his country had always supported sanctions.
Ms Kallas also explained that the fight against the Russian ‘shadow fleet’ was continuing. “Concerted action works. Over the past months, our measures have made these shady operations harder, riskier, and more costly. For example, France and Sweden recently boarded tankers, and our EU naval Operation IRINI has begun boarding shadow fleet vessels under updated rules of engagement”, she recalled.
According to Ms Kallas, Western sanctions have already cost Moscow between $1.2 and $1.5 trillion. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)