(Adnkronos) – The EU Foreign Affairs Council will formally approve, next Tuesday, the seventeenth package of sanctions in response to the Russian aggression against Ukraine. It is, explained a senior EU official, 75 people, including natural and legal persons, included in the lists, and “almost 200 ships” belonging to the so-called ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers, which Russia uses to circumvent the price cap on crude oil that the West has been trying to impose for years.
With the new package, the list of those sanctioned by the EU for the war in Ukraine should rise to “almost 2,500”, plus “300 ships” since the beginning of the war. Alongside the 17th package stricto sensu, other measures will be adopted under the hybrid warfare sanctions regime, for a total of 27 lists and sectoral measures. There is also a package on human rights violations, under the ad hoc sanctions regime, with another “28” entries.
Finally, the fourth and final component is a package on Russia’s use of riot control agents as a means of war in Ukraine, under the chemical weapons sanctions regime. It is expected that more than 130 individual sanctions will be adopted, including facilitators of the shadow fleet, the military industry and its suppliers from third countries, disinformation activities, as well as about 200 ship designations, the “largest package” approved by the EU so far.
