The European Union has agreed to a new round of sanctions targeting senior Russian officials and oligarchs in retaliation for Moscow's military operation in neighboring Ukraine, France said on Wednesday.
The new sanctions will also include restrictions on the maritime sector and exclude three Belarussian banks from the SWIFT banking system, France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, said in a series of tweets. The additional sanctions will be formally approved by leaders of the bloc's 27 member states at a summit in Versailles, France, on Thursday and Friday.
The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday that the governments are preparing a new round of travel bans and asset freezes on some 100 Russians.
"Member states are working on a package of sanctions, around 100 people responsible at different levels of government," Borrell told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. He said he hoped for agreement "by the end of this session today," without giving more details.
More than 2 million people have fled Ukraine and hundreds of thousands have been left trapped without access to medicine or fresh water since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion nearly two weeks ago.
Moscow calls its action a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbor and dislodge leaders it calls "neo-Nazis." Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss that as a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war against a democratic country of 44 million people.
The new sanctions were agreed upon at a so-called COREPER II meeting, which convenes each member state's permanent representatives to the bloc, ahead of the summit.
United States President Joe Biden on Tuesday imposed an immediate ban on Russian oil and other energy imports in retaliation for the invasion.
Russia warned earlier this week that oil prices could shoot up to over $300 per barrel if the U.S. and EU banned imports of crude from Russia.
Russia says Europe consumes about 500 million tonnes of oil a year. Russia supplies around 30% of that, or 150 million tonnes, as well as 80 million tonnes of petrochemicals.
