European Union threatens Russia with more sanctions

Despite tough rhetoric decrying Russia’s increasing military involvement in Ukraine, European Union leaders on Sunday stopped short of imposing new sanctions against Moscow right away. 

Instead, the 28-nation bloc’s heads of state and government tasked their executive body to ‘urgently’ prepare tougher economic sanctions that could be adopted within a week, according to EU summit chairman Herman Van Rompuy. The decision on new sanctions will depend on the evolution of the situation on the ground but ‘everybody is fully aware that we have to act quickly,’ he added. The EU leaders call on Russia to ‘immediately withdraw all its military assets and forces from Ukraine,’ they said in a joint statement. Nato said this week that at least 1,000 Russian soldiers are in Ukraine. 

Russia denies that. Nato also says Russia has amassed some 20,000 troops just across Ukraine’s eastern border, which could rapidly carry out a full-scale invasion. The fighting between the military and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine has so far claimed 2,600 lives, according to UN figures.  The US and the EU have so far imposed sanctions against dozens of Russian officials, several companies as well as the country’s financial and arms industry. Moscow has retaliated by banning food imports.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the new sanctions would target the same sectors as previous measures, which also included an export ban for some high technology and oil exploration equipment.