EU countries on Friday agreed to prolong sanctions over the war in Ukraine for another six months on more than 2,500 Russian individuals and entities, including President Vladimir Putin.
Ambassadors from the bloc’s 27 member states signed off on the move ahead of a deadline on Monday, after Hungary and Slovakia dropped demands to take a number of people off the blacklist, diplomats said.
“We just extended our sanctions on Russia,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X on Friday.
She said Brussels was currently finalising work on a new package of sanctions “looking into additional curbs on Russian oil sales, shadow oil tankers, and banks”.
“We’ll keep choking off the cash for Putin’s war,” Kallas wrote.
The sanctions -- which have to be renewed each six months -- were set to lapse next week if no deal was found.
Extensions since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine have usually been a routine, but Moscow-friendly Hungary has regularly pushed for some people to be removed.
The latest extension comes as peace efforts being pushed by US President Donald Trump are being stalled by the Kremlin.
Tensions have been heightened after NATO jets shot down Russian drones over EU member Poland this week.
Moreover, Britain announced fresh sanctions against Russia, targeting military weapons, equipment suppliers and its shadow fleet as UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper visited Kyiv.
Security analysts say Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of ageing vessels is used by Moscow to circumvent international sanctions that ban it from selling oil.
“The UK continues to lead the charge against the shadow fleet carrying Russian oil exports. Today, 70 more ships in the fleet have been sanctioned. The UK has now targeted more oil tankers than any other country,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The fresh round of sanctions also hits 30 firms and individuals “propping up Russia’s war machine by supplying key equipment such as electronics, chemicals and explosives used to manufacture missiles and other weapons systems”, it added.
Companies on the list included China-based electronics supplier Shenzhen Blue Hat International Trade Co. Ltd. and its two Russian co-owners, Elena Malitckaia and Alexey Malitskiy.
Others included Turkey-based Mastel Makina Ithalat Ihracat Limited Sirketi and its CEO, Azerbaijani national Shanlik Shukurov.
Newly appointed Foreign Secretary Cooper arrived in Kyiv earlier Friday.
Notably, the Kremlin said Friday that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine were on “pause”.
“Our negotiators have the opportunity to communicate through channels. But for now, it is probably more accurate to talk about a pause,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, in a briefing call.
“You can’t wear rose-tinted glasses and expect that the negotiation process will yield immediate results,” he added.
Russia has been escalating attacks on Ukraine, launching its biggest ever aerial assault last week that killed several people and set a government building in the capital Kyiv ablaze.
Three rounds of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul have failed to yield anything more than large-scale prisoner exchanges.
Russia has maintained a series of hardline demands, including that Ukraine fully cedes the eastern Donbas region -- parts of which it still controls.
Kyiv has rejected territorial concessions and wants European troops to be deployed to Ukraine as a peacekeeping force, something Moscow sees as unacceptable.