EU extends Russian sanctions to 2016

EU foreign ministers agreed at a meeting in Luxembourg yesterday to extend sanctions against Russia until Jan. 31, 2016, in an attempt to make Moscow abide by the cease-fire agreement signed in February. On Feb. 12, Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany signed a cease-fire agreement, also called the Minsk Agreement, over the crisis in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia slammed the EU's decision and said it would extend sanctions against the European Union in turn. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited by Sputnik news agency yesterday as saying: "Russia, naturally, considers these sanctions to be unfounded and illegal, and we have never been the instigators of sanction measures." Sanctions were imposed more than a year ago over Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and for its support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions mainly target senior officials in Russia and exclude its state banks from raising long-term loans. At least 6,417 people have been killed and 15,962 others wounded in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists since April 2014, according to the U.N.'s latest report.