The European Union will approve a new round of sanctions against Russia on Monday, France’s Minister for European Affairs, Benjamin Haddad, said on Thursday.
“On Monday, we will take new sanctions against Russia, on 150 additional entities, 50 banks and it’s France which proposed the bulk of the entities to add,” Haddad told LCI television.
“We will continue to put economic pressure on Russia and of course support Ukraine,” he added.
The announcement comes as American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner meet President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday, the latest step in a United States-led push for a peace deal in Ukraine after two days of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi. Those talks ended on Wednesday with agreement on a large prisoner exchange but no public breakthrough on the wider issues, including territory.
The new measures would add to one of the most extensive sanctions regimes ever imposed on a major economy. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has steadily widened its restrictions to cover Russian banks, energy exports, defence firms and the officials and business figures around the Kremlin, alongside asset freezes and travel bans. The precise contents of Monday’s package have not yet been published, and the details so far rest on Haddad’s televised announcement alone.
Haddad used the same appearance to condemn Russia’s decision on Wednesday to ban two French journalists and two French lawmakers from entering the country. Those barred are Ariane Chemin, a reporter for Le Monde, Paul Gogo, a freelance journalist and former Moscow correspondent, and the members of parliament Sacha Houlié and Arthur Delaporte.
“This is intimidation. France will not be intimidated. I think these lawmakers and these journalists are doing their jobs, these lawmakers are notably very involved in the fight against foreign interference,” Haddad said.
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said earlier on X that the Kremlin’s presentation of the ban as a response to France’s expulsion in July of alleged Russian propagandist Xenia Fedorova “confirmed her ties to Russian authorities”. Fedorova, the former chief of RT France, had become a prominent figure on the rolling news channel CNews and the associated outlets Europe 1 and JDNews, all belonging to conservative tycoon Vincent Bolloré, and was accused by French authorities of spreading Russian misinformation.
The sanctions announcement and the tit-for-tat expulsions underline how, even as Washington pursues a negotiated end to the war, Europe is pressing ahead with economic pressure on Moscow and hardening its stance against what it describes as Russian interference in its public life.
Sources: Reuters
