On 15 March, the EU agreed to impose a fourth package of economic and individual sanctions in response to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. These new measures include a prohibition on:

• All transactions with certain state-owned enterprises
• The provision of credit rating services to any Russian person or entity
• A far-reaching ban on new investments in the Russian energy sector
• Trade restrictions for iron, steel and luxury goods
• Sanctions targeted on additional 15 individual and 9 entities

Since March 2014, the EU has progressively imposed restrictive measures in response to the Annexation of Crimea in 2014, the decision to recognize the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as independent entities in 2022 and the military aggression against Ukraine in 2022.

Throughout these eight years, the EU has imposed different types of restrictive sanctions:

• Diplomatic sanctions (visa facilitation provisions)
• Sanctions targeted to individuals such as asset freezes and travel restrictions (now apply to a total of 877 individuals and 62 entities, they were last extended until 15 September 2022)
• Economic sanctions
• Restrictions on media (suspension of the broadcasting activities in the EU of Russia Today and Sputnik)
• Restrictions on economic cooperation (suspension on Russian’s financing by leading multilateral and international financial institutions)
• Restrictions on economic relations with Crimea, Sevastopol and the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk (import ban on goods, restrictions on trade and investment related to certain economic sectors, prohibition on supplying tourism services and export ban on certain goods and technologies)

 Image © European Commission 2022