At a meeting held in Brussels on Wednesday, 20 July, EU envoys expanded the sanctions imposed on Moscow for invading Ukraine. Among the new restrictions are the ban on imports of Russian gold and the freezing of Sberbank’s assets.
«The main goal is to align with G7 partners, reinforce the implementation and close the loopholes where necessary,» the Czech government reported on Twitter.
The EU has imposed a total of six packages of sanctions against Russia so far. The last one was adopted in June, and consisted of an embargo on Russian oil.
With the embargo on gold the EU will implement the decision that was made at the G7 summit in June.
The EU has also decided to freeze the assets owned by Sberbank. Sanctions were also imposed on even more private and legal persons from Russia.
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At the same time, the EU is making moves to unblock the assets of Russian banks to reopen trade of food and mineral fertilisers in an attempt to counter Moscow’s accusations that the sanctions are causing a food crisis.
Sanctions now also include the pro-Kremlin biker club Night wolves, as well as Russian actors Vladimir Mashkov and Sergey Bezrukov. According to EU diplomats this is because both have expressed public support of Russia’s war in Ukraine.