BRUSSELS: Poland and Lithuania want the European Union to impose restrictions on Russia’s nuclear sector as part of new sanctions against Moscow and Minsk for the war in Ukraine, senior diplomats from the two EU countries said on Friday.
The EU’s leading Russia hawks will propose that the bloc bans more “Russian propaganda” media outlets and cuts more Russian banks from the SWIFT global messaging system, the diplomats said, asking not to be identified.
“It is more and more difficult to get the necessary unanimity in the EU for more sanctions. Nonetheless, we will propose an ambitious new package,” said one of the diplomats.
They said the 10th EU package of sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine should be ready in time for the first anniversary of the invasion on Feb. 24.
They wanted new sanctions against Russia’s ally Belarus, where they said loopholes allowed it to bypass European sanctions against Moscow in trading goods including furniture.
That chimes with an announcement earlier this month by the EU’s chief executive, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, that the bloc would impose sanctions against Belarus for aiding Russia in the war.
Russia used Belarus as a springboard to invade Ukraine and since October has deployed troops in Belarus for joint military drills.
Ukraine has already called on the 27-nation EU to include Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom in its next round of sanctions, a move that has so far been blocked by Hungary, among others.
Hungary has four Russian-built nuclear reactors and plans to expand that by two, to be built by Rosatom.
“Are you comfortable with a partner like that? Who invades a neighboring country while also building your nuclear plant?,” said a senior Ukrainian diplomat attending the same meeting on Friday with the EU diplomats in the bloc’s hub Brussels.
They proposed that Rosatom and/or its leadership be blacklisted as a first step that should then lead to winding down cooperation in the EU with Russia’s nuclear industry.
The EU currently has some 1,300 individuals and 120 entities blacklisted over Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as economic sanctions in place that include the trade, transport, energy, banking, media and defense sectors.
The senior diplomats said they would also try again to end Belgium’s diamond trade with Russia through new EU sanctions and expand bans on trade in goods that can be used for military purposes.
Poland, Lithuania want nuclear curbs in new EU sanctions on Russia
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Poland, Lithuania want nuclear curbs in new EU sanctions on Russia
- The EU's leading Russia hawks will propose that the bloc bans more "Russian propaganda" media outlets
- Ukraine has already called on the 27-nation EU to include Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom in its next round of sanctions
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
