The EU is keeping up the pressure after criticizing the United States for lifting sanctions on Russian oil exports while escalating the war in the Middle East.
The European Union voted to renew sanctions against individuals and entities supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine, as Russian forces continued to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure, killing five people in the Zaporizhia and kyiv regions.
The EU Council announced that the bloc’s 27 member states had agreed on Saturday to extend sanctions targeting some 2,600 individuals and entities with measures such as travel restrictions and asset freezes until September 15, breaking an earlier deadlock caused by Hungary and Slovakia’s opposition to the measure.
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The extension of sanctions came a day after EU Council chief Antonio Costa criticized the United States for lifting sanctions on Russian oil exports, saying in X that the weakening of restrictions increased “Russian resources to wage the war of aggression against Ukraine,” with a knock-on impact on European security.
The move was announced as Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing four people and wounding 15 in the kyiv region surrounding the capital, according to regional military administrator Mykola Kalashnyk.
The city of Zaporizhzhia was also hit by Russian-guided bombs, killing one person and wounding three, said the governor of the southeastern region, Ivan Fedorov. Photos posted online showed parts of buildings reduced to rubble.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s main target was energy infrastructure outside the capital kyiv, but the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv were also targeted in an attack that included around 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were shot down by air defences.
Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine have left large cities without power or heat, as Moscow’s troops continue their offensive amid demands that kyiv cede more territory in the east. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that consumers in six regions were left without electricity.
Ukrainian forces have attacked Russian strategic infrastructure, such as refineries, depots and oil terminals, in long-range attacks. On Saturday, the Ukrainian military said it had attacked the Afipsky oil refinery and Port Kavkaz in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia.
Putin ‘exploits’ distraction in Middle East
Saturday’s fighting came as the conflict with Iran has distracted international attention from a U.S.-backed peace push in the four-year war, which kyiv says Moscow has no interest in ending.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever called on Saturday for the EU to be given a mandate by its member states to negotiate with Russia, as it became clear amid rising oil prices caused by the Iran war that the United States was easing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Since we are not able to threaten Putin by sending weapons to Ukraine, and we cannot strangle him economically without US support, there is only one method left: reaching an agreement,” he told Belgian newspaper L’Echo.
EU diplomat Kaja Kallas has said in the past that the bloc must first reach an agreement on what is expected of Russia before approaching Putin directly and formulating its own “maximalist demands.”
However, the bloc’s inability to reach a common position was highlighted during recent EU Council deliberations on expanding sanctions.
Hungary and Slovakia, which have been arguing with Ukraine over blocking Russian oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline, had previously opposed extending the restrictions and had reportedly called for some Russian oligarchs to be removed from the list of violators.
Reacting earlier this week to rising oil prices caused by the war in Iran, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban urged the EU to lift sanctions on Russian energy.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy said: “Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine.”
