EU: Latest Sanctions on Russia Includes Ban on Maritime Oil

According to the announcement made by the French presidency to the Council of the European Union, the sixth package of sanctions delivered against Russia includes the prohibition of maritime oil.

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The French presidency posted on its official Twitter account that "this ban, combined with state-level decisions taken by Germany and Poland, will reduce Russian oil imports by 92 percent by the end of the year" It promised that "it will be complemented shortly by a ban on the import of Russian oil by pipeline."

The new package of sanctions targeting Russia has been signed off on by the member states of the EU Council, which will be adopted by written procedures by the Council, and officially released by Friday. Alongside the current oil banning, this new package of sanctions includes the sanctions on the high-tech goods and chemicals export sectors and restrictions on the use of the SWIFT banking system for some Russian banks.

With this new package of sanctions, the Russian oil sector and companies are restricted from receiving services from EU companies. "Three Russian media outlets in spreading propaganda" were banned across the European Union, including Sputnik and RT. The Russian FM reacted by saying that it would receive a response. "Members of the [Russian] security and military apparatus linked to the Bucha massacres, entities in the industrial and technological sectors linked to Russian aggression, oligarchs and Russian propaganda actors and members of their families" will be targeted with the sanctions, according to the French representative.

"The decisions that the EU makes are, of course, motivated by politics more than anything, and not at all by economics, because European consumers will be the ones to suffer first and foremost as a result of these decisions. We see an increase in prices, not only for oil but also for oil products. I don't rule out a large shortage of oil products in the EU," said the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, as he warned that only regular European consumers would be the ones affected by such a decision.

In the scenario of the draft of Brussels' proposed sixth package of sanctions against Russia at the end of last month, Hungary opposed the proposal, explaining that the ban on Russian oil imports would be equivalent to dropping an "atomic bomb" on the economy.