The EU has proposed a 21st package of sanctions against Russia for its war in Ukraine, heavily targeting the country’s banks and crypto networks as well as drone production, oil traders and refiners, EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas said. The new package will propose listing 170 individuals and entities. These include close to 90 banks – the biggest in one go – and would take the total number of listed banks to over 100, or more than half of Russia’s 213 internationally connected lenders. The
banks will come under the full weight of EU sanctions including asset freezes, travel and transaction bans. “We intend to deal a heavy blow to Russia’s financial sector, imposing assets freezes on close to 90 banks and additional transactions bans on over 30 banks in Russia and other third countries,” Kallas said in a post on X. An EU diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aim was to weaken Russia’s financial system and incentivise Moscow to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine.
The package will be presented to EU ambassadors today for negotiations. Sanctions require unanimity to be adopted. Western sanctions already heavily target Russia’s banking system and its major banks were disconnected in 2022 from SWIFT, a secure global financial payment instructions system. Russian companies now use a broad network of smaller lenders to evade sanctions and continue trading.
EU sanctions, Russia, Ukraine war, Kaja Kallas, banking sanctions, SWIFT, crypto networks, drone production, oil traders, asset freezes, transaction bans
So are they gonna freeze all Russia’s money or just the banks? Sounds like both I guess.
“Crypto networks” feels like a joke tbh. Like Russia just uses crypto anyway and EU thinks it’s gonna magically stop trades. Also 170 entities?? That’s insane.
Wait I thought SWIFT was already done in 2022, so how is this different? If they disconnect SWIFT already then the rest is just paper sanctions right? Not sure but it sounds like more of the same.
They keep adding sanctions like that’s gonna force a peace deal overnight. Unanimity too, so watch one country veto it and then nothing happens. Meanwhile Russian banks already reroute through other stuff, so who’s really getting hit here, regular people or just shell companies?