The European Commission proposed the eighth package of sanctions against Russia. What went in there?

The European Commission has officially developed and proposed the eighth package of sanctions against Russia. Now the representatives of EU member states will start discussing it.

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the new proposed restrictions against Russia at a briefing.

"Russia has taken the invasion of Ukraine to a new level. And we are determined to make the Kremlin pay the price for this further escalation," she said.

In the new package of sanctions, the European Commission offers:

• expand personal sanctions by adding new individuals and legal entities;
• introduce new trade restrictions that will deprive Russia of about €7 billion, as well as ban the supply of key technologies to Russia to continue the war;
• introduce additional restrictions on the use of European services;
• ban EU citizens from holding positions in the management bodies of Russian state-owned companies;
• to prepare mechanisms for the introduction of restrictions on the price of Russian oil;
• work to prevent Russiaʼs attempts to circumvent sanctions.

In the near future, the member states of the European Union will start discussing this package and will be able to make changes to it as they wish. Decisions on EU sanctions are taken unanimously.

• On September 21, Putin announced a partial mobilization in Russia, supported the holding of pseudo-referendums in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and threatened nuclear weapons in the event of an attack on the Russian Federation.
• On September 23, the Russian occupiers started "referendums" in the captured parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. They will last until September 27.
• A number of countries have declared that they do not recognize the results of these pseudo-referendums, Russia has promised sanctions.