Some EU countries do not want sanctions on oil and gas. Instead, Putin’s daughters Marija Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova are now on the sanctions list.
Imports of coal from Russia to Finland and other EU countries will end in August.
This will ban EU countries from buying, importing and transiting coal from August. These are the first EU sanctions to hit the Russian energy industry directly.
Import ban also on wood, four Russian banks completely out of the EU
The EU also imposed import bans on wood, cement, fertilizers, caviar and vodka.
Of the wood used in Finland, Russian imports have accounted for about ten percent.
Forest companies are trying to obtain substitute wood for Russian imports. In practice, it must be found in Finland and the surrounding areas, which means a setback for Finland’s goals to increase the carbon sinks of its own forests.
The EU also imposed wholesale bans on products exported to Russia. These include aviation fuel and a number of high-tech products, such as advanced semiconductors.
There will also be restrictions on shipping and truck traffic. In the future, Russian ships and trucks will be allowed to transport mainly fuel, food, agricultural products and medicines through the EU. The ban also applies to Belarusian trucks.
At the same time, the EU cut off all operations of four Russian banks in the EU. Banks were not named, but von der Leyen according to (you switch to another service) Russia’s second largest bank VTB is among them.
Sanctions extended to Putin’s family
The list of personal sanctions increased by about 200 new names.
The most interesting names on the list are the President of Russia Vladimir Putin two adult daughters, 36 years old Maria Vorontsova and 35 years old Katerina Tihonova. They are now banned from traveling in the EU and their assets in Europe have been frozen.
Both daughters live in Russia and are researchers by profession. Vorontsova is an endocrinologist who studies diseases of the hormone-producing glands, and Tikhonova is a physicist and mathematician who has worked at the university.
Putin has hardly talked about his daughters’ lives in public at all.
Tikhonova has been a competitive dancer in the past, and Vorontsova is According to the BBC (switching to another service) has been planning a major construction project for a medical center in Russia. Neither of them has been said to be particularly close to Putin.
The United States put Vorontsova and Tikhonova on the sanctions list earlier this week, and now both the EU and Britain did the same.
According to a spokesman for the U.S. administration, there is reason to believe that Putin’s funds have been dispersed in the names of family members.
The richest and most difficult gas and oil were left out of the sanctions
The most drastic measures, banning the import of Russian gas and oil, were still missing from the sanctions list.
Coal was by far the easiest of the sanctions on Russian energy. Its value to Russia is considerably lower than that of gas and oil, so its import ban will not acutely slow down the operation of the Moscow war machine.
An incubator based in Brussels Bruegel calculates (you switch to another service) The EU coal trade will generate about 20 million euros a day for Russia. Oil and gas, on the other hand, produce more than 40 times as much as € 850 million a day, according to Bruegel.
Many countries, such as Germany, are still too attached to Russian energy. Another such country is Hungary. The newly elected prime minister for the next term Viktor Orbán said on Wednesday that a gas and oil ban would “kill Hungary”.
Orbán has been on good terms with Putin, but has condemned the Russian attack and has kept Hungary on the EU sanctions line so far.
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