EU FlagBRUSSELS, Mar 25EU leaders agreed to remain ready to take new measures and work to ensure the effectiveness of existing sanctions against Russia, European Council President Charles Michel said following a two-day EU summit. «We agreed to continue working to make sanctions more effective, to fight against direct and indirect mechanisms, which allow them to bypass them. We plan to cooperate in this with a number of states. We also agreed to continue working in order to remain ready to take additional measures together with our partners,» he said at a press conference in Brussels following the summit.
The Russian Embassy called the new British sanctions blind rageWestern countries have introduced new anti-Russian sanctions, including against Russian banks and enterprises, because of Ukraine. A number of companies announced their withdrawal from the Russian market and the closure of production facilities in the Russian Federation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that Western companies that refuse to work with Russia did so under enormous pressure, but Russia will solve all the problems with the economy that the West creates for it. Later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the policy of containing and weakening Russia — this is a long-term strategy of the West, and the sanctions have dealt a serious blow to the entire world economy. According to him, the main goal of the West is to worsen the lives of millions of people. Putin also said that the United States and the European Union had effectively defaulted on their obligations to Russia, freezing its foreign exchange reserves. He added that the current events draw a line under the global dominance of the West in both politics and the economy. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Russian Armed Forces, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive, but there is no talk of the occupation of Ukraine, the Russian president emphasized. due to sanctions
