EU hits Putin’s defense minister and chief of staff with sanctions

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Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff and his defense minister have been blacklisted by the EU as part of the bloc’s first round of sanctions against Russia for its renewed aggression against Ukraine.

Anton Vaino, chief of staff in Putin’s presidential office, and Sergei Shoigu, defense minister, are among 27 people and entities named in a list of restrictive measures agreed by the EU’s member states.

Sanctions were also imposed on two of Russia’s deputy prime ministers for their work in “threaten[ing] the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”, and the heads of Russia’s navy, army and air force, in what EU officials said were the first of potentially multiple waves of measures against Moscow.

The decisions came as Charles Michel, European Council president, convened a summit of the bloc’s leaders in Brussels on Thursday to discuss “how we deal with Russia” and hold Moscow accountable for its actions.

“The use of force and coercion to change borders has no place in the 21st century,” he said in a letter to EU leaders.

The EU’s move against Vaino and Shoigu, who are members of Russia’s powerful security council, takes the bloc’s Ukraine-related sanctions to Putin’s inner circle of advisers. The measures involve an asset freeze and a ban on providing funds to those listed, and a block on travel to and within the EU.

The sanctions are a first step by the EU to punish Russia for its actions in eastern Ukraine, with policymakers warning they are ready to increase the pressure on leading Russian business figures and the country’s wider economy if Putins on a full invasion of Ukraine.

Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, on Wednesday stressed that she did not consider that Russia had yet engaged in a “military invasion” but that it was guilty of a serious breach of international law. However, she added: “If there is any further military action against Ukraine there will be a massive and robust second package that is coming.”

She told CNN: “Russia will have to pay a price and it is President Putin who will have to explain to his people why he is putting this enormous price on them.”

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Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, the Kremlin-funded English language TV channel that broadcasts outside Russia, is on the sanctions list for having “promoted a positive attitude to . . . the actions of separatists in Donbas”. Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent and prominent Russian TV news anchor, and Maria Zakharova, foreign ministry spokeswoman, will also be hit with sanctions.

The EU’s foreign policy arm warning this week of a wave of Russian state-backed propaganda targeting the bloc.

The EU sanctions will also apply to three banks with operations in the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist-held territories — VEB, Promsvyazbank and Bank Rossiya, according to the list.

While VTB Bank, Russia’s second-largest by assets, was not included on the list of lenders to be put under sanctions, its president, Andrei Kostin, and deputy president, Denis Bortnikov, were on the list of individuals to be placed under them. Bortnikov’s father is the head of Russia’s FSB spy service.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is already in the EU’s Libya-related sanctions for his alleged links to the mercenary Wagner group, is included in the new list — alongside his mother and wife — for his business links to Crimea and the occupied areas of eastern Ukraine.

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