EU joins U.S. in heaping more sanctions on Russia to push Putin into Ukraine peace talks

The European Union on Thursday heaped more economic sanctions on Russia, adding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s new punitive measures the previous day against the Russian oil industry.

It is a broadened effort to choke off the revenue that funds Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and to force President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war, though Russian state media dismissed the measures, claiming they are largely ineffective.

But the steps are a triumph for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has long campaigned for the international community to punish Russia more comprehensively for attacking his country.

“We waited for this. God bless, it will work. And this is very important,” the Ukrainian leader said in Brussels, where EU countries attending a summit announced the latest round of Russia sanctions.

Despite U.S.-led peace efforts in recent months, the war shows no sign of ending after more than three years of fighting, and European leaders are increasingly concerned about the threat from Russia.

Ukrainian forces have largely held Russia’s bigger army at bay in a slow and ruinous war of attrition along a roughly 1,000-kilometre front line that snakes along eastern and southern Ukraine. Almost daily Russian long-range strikes have taken aim at Ukraine’s power grid ahead of the bitter winter, while Ukrainian forces have targeted Russian oil refineries and manufacturing plants.

Energy revenue is the linchpin of Russia’s economy, allowing Putin to pour money into the armed forces without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a currency collapse.

The effectiveness of economic sanctions in forcing Putin’s hand is questionable, analysts say. Russia’s economy has so far proved resilient, although it is showing signs of strain.

Nearly 20 rounds of sanctions

The EU measures target Russian oil and gas, the Russian shadow fleet of hundreds of aging tankers that are dodging sanctions, and Russia’s financial sector. Also, a new system for limiting the movement of Russian diplomats within the 27-nation EU will be introduced.

Zelenskyy urged more nations to punish Russia.

“This is a good signal to other countries in the world to join the sanctions,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Senior officials in Europe and the United States have debated for months over how best to crank up pressure on the Kremlin.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova described the new U.S. sanctions as “entirely counterproductive, including in terms of signalling in favour or achieving a meaningful negotiated solution to the Ukrainian conflict.”

“If the current U.S. administration follows the example of its predecessors, who attempted to coerce or force Russia into sacrificing its national interests through unlawful sanctions, the result will be exactly the same — disastrous from a domestic political standpoint and detrimental to the stability of the global economy,” Zakharova said.

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said in a column that the new sanctions were “painful, as usual, but not deadly. Also as usual.”

The new EU measures took almost a month to decide. The 27-nation bloc has already slapped 18 packages of sanctions against Russia over the war, but getting final agreement on whom and what to target can take weeks. Moscow has also proved adept at sidestepping sanctions.

The U.S. sanctions against Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil came after Trump said that his plan for a swift meeting with Putin was on hold because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time,” in the latest twist in Trump’s hot-and-cold efforts to end the war as Putin refuses to budge from his demands.

In what appeared to be a public reminder of Russian atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces.

Double-tap drone strike

The two sides continued to pummel each other with strikes overnight.

In a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Russia conducted a so-called double-tap drone strike, hitting the same place a second time when first responders arrived at the scene of the first strike, regional head Oleh Syniehubov said. One emergency worker was killed and five of his colleagues were injured, Syniehubov said.

Russian drones also attacked three districts of Kyiv, injuring eight people, according to the city’s prosecutor office.

As well, two Ukrainian journalists were killed by a Russian drone in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Thursday.

Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin identified the journalists as Olena Hubanova and Yevhen Karmazin from Ukraine’s state-funded Freedom television channel. The channel, which broadcasts in Russian, confirmed their deaths and said they were in a car at a petrol station at the time of the strike.

Filashkin said they were hit by a Lancet, a costly and powerful drone often used against tanks and armoured vehicles.

The Russian Defence Ministry, meanwhile, reported intercepting and destroying 139 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and the annexed Crimean peninsula overnight.

It did not comment on unconfirmed reports that Ukrainian drones hit another oil refinery and an unspecified energy facility.