Brussels and Washington have adopted new sanctions against Russia

The text must still receive the written agreement of each Member State with a view to publishing it on Friday in the Official Journal to allow entry into force of the measures, specified by the French presidency of the Council ofEU.

The European Commission has proposed to include in the list of persons authorized the freezing of their property and ban on entry intoEU Patriarch Kirill for supporting the Russian offensive, but Hungary opposed it, saying it was an attack on religious freedom.

Budapest also blocked a total Russian oil embargo. The penalties ofEU should be adopted unanimously.

At a summit on Monday in Brussels, 27 Heads of State and Government reached an agreement that should lead to a reduction of approximately 90% of their Russian oil imports by the end of the year to cut the funding the war conducted by Moscow against Ukraine.

The agreement provides for a gradual cessation of Russia’s boat-carrying oil imports, i.e., 2/3 of purchases in Europe. To remove Budapest’s veto, a temporary exemption was provided for oil carried through the pipeline, involving Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Germany and Poland have promised for their part to stop their imports through the Druzhba pipeline by the end of 2022, in total, it is 90% of Russia’s oil exports toEU which must be completed by the end of the year.

Growing blacklist

Under negotiations within a month, the new sanctions package also plans to extend the blacklist ofEU by adding about sixty personalities, including many suspected Russian soldiers war crimes in Boutcha, family members of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, but also former Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva.

Some media and opponents have actually linked it to a relationship over the years with Vladimir Putin, which the Russian president denied in 2008.

There is also the exclusion of three Russian banks from the Swift international financial system, including Sberbank, the main banking establishment in Russia, as well as a Belarusian bank.

Three Russian TV channels, including Russia 24 and Russia RTR, will be banned from broadcasting onEU.

The sanctions in Europe, taken since 2014 after the annexation of Crimea, involve 1091 people and 80 entities.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Alexander Novak said on Thursday that European consumers would be the first suffer of the oil embargo.

The United States is also increasing

The United States also announced on Thursday a new series of sanctions to push Vladimir Putin to surrender the war in Ukraine, specifically targeting his close friend and “financier” Sergei Pavlovich Roldougin and a superyacht brokerage company. for the oligarchs of Russia.

The U.S. Treasury, State Department and Commerce Department are targeting a whole host of new oligarchs or members the elite from Moscow, including spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy Maria Zakharova.

Several yachts regularly used, according to Washington, by the president of Russia, are also on America’s blacklist, including Kindly, Olympia, Shellest at Nega.

In a press release, the Treasury claimed the attack major networks used by Russia’s elites, including President Vladimir Putin himself, to try to hide and transfer money and anonymously enjoy their luxuries across the planet – thus escaping the unprecedented Western sanctions imposed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.

Among the most well -known people in this new round of American sanctions is cellist Sergei Pavlovich Roldougin, a close friend of Russia’s head of state. more than 40 yearsbut also presented as him fund manager at member of a governing system him swerte offshore. He was authorized by the European Union at the end of February.

His wife, soprano Elena Mirtova, was also affected by these penalties that froze their possible assets in the United States and prevented their access to the American market.

Imperial Yachts, a superyacht service provider for members of the Russian elite, including in President Putin’s inner circleis also blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury.

So is Skyline Aviation, which is headquartered in San Marino, but is accused of flying its private planes in Crimea, part of Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2014 without international recognition.

For its part, the State Department punished Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and steel tycoon Alexei Mordashov, one of Russia’s richest billionairescovered byEU. This indicates that they are prohibited from entering the United States.