LUXEMBOURG (Dispatches) - EU foreign ministers have adopted nearly 1,600 new sanctions listings targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced Monday.
The bloc’s foreign ministers approved the package during a meeting in Luxembourg, adding 1,600 new listings “targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex,” the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said on X.
“This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list against Russia,” she added. “More than half are connected to the production chain for ballistic missiles.”
Monday’s approval was a formality after EU countries agreed on the sanctions list in earlier talks.
“We are making it significantly harder, slower and more expensive for Russia to produce the weapons it uses to kill Ukrainians,” Kallas said.
The sanctions list will last for three years before it needs to be renewed.
Kallas also called on the U.S. to align with the bloc’s sanctions policy against Russia.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, Kallas said efforts to pressure Moscow would be more effective if the U.S. joined the EU and UK in imposing further sanctions on Russia.
“It would work so much better if our partners from the UK and from the U.S. would be aligned with us,” she said, adding that Washington’s adoption of the Graham bill on Russia could significantly strengthen pressure on Moscow.
“We could really put the pressure so that Russia will finish this war,” Kallas said.
She said sanctions had deprived Russia of €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion), adding that measures targeting the country’s so-called shadow fleet were also making it increasingly difficult for Moscow to fund the war.
On U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, Kallas said the EU welcomed the arrangement but had yet to see whether Moscow would comply.
She stressed the ceasefire should extend beyond energy infrastructure to include an “end to the killing of people.”
Kallas also questioned the scope of the arrangement, noting that Ukraine had one refinery while Russia had several, and said the ceasefire should not benefit Moscow.