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European Union foreign ministers on Monday formally approved nearly 1,600 new sanctions listings targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex over the war in Ukraine, marking the bloc’s largest single expansion of its Russia sanctions list since the war began.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said more than half of the newly sanctioned individuals and entities were connected to the production chain for ballistic missiles.
“This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war,” Kallas said on X.
“We are making it significantly harder, slower and more expensive for Russia to produce the weapons it uses to kill Ukrainians,” she added.
The ministers formally approved an agreement reached by EU ambassadors last Wednesday.
The new measures will bring the EU’s sanctions blacklist related to Russia to around 3,500 listings, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Alongside sanctions targeting individuals and entities, the 27-member bloc has imposed multiple rounds of restrictions covering broad sectors of the Russian economy.
The latest action comes after U.S. President Donald Trump last week lifted sanctions on Russian diesel as part of an agreement for Moscow to supply fuel to the U.S. and global markets, a move that unsettled Ukraine and its European supporters.
EU governments also faced criticism from Kyiv last month after France and Luxembourg pushed for sanctions to be lifted on prominent Russian billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman.
In Usmanov’s case, the move was linked to a French prisoner release agreement in Azerbaijan.
Kallas said the latest package showed that “Europe is again showing a united front” against Russia.
However, concerns remain over how much further the EU can expand sanctions as member states increasingly struggle to agree on measures that would not significantly damage their own economies.
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