BRUSSELS: The EU’s 27 leaders on Thursday agreed to extend sanctions on Russia for another six months, resolving fears that Kremlin-friendly Hungary would let the measures lapse, officials said.
The decision at a summit in Brussels means that the EU’s sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine, including the freezing of more than 200 billion euros ($234 billion) in Russian central bank assets, will remain in force until at least early 2026.
It comes after officials said they were preparing contingency plans to keep the bloc’s economic punishment on Moscow in place should Hungarian leader Viktor Orban refuse to budge.
EU counterparts had feared a refusal by Budapest to renew the measures could blow a massive hole in the leverage the bloc holds over Russia as the United States presses peace efforts.
Orban took the decision to the wire the last time the sanctions — which need to be extended every six months — came up for renewal in January.
But while the EU made sure its existing measures will remain in place, it failed to get clearance on a new package of sanctions due to a blockage by Hungary’s ally Slovakia.
Slovakian leader Roberto Fico refused at the summit to greenlight the new round of sanctions due to a separate dispute with Brussels over plans to cut off imports of Russian gas by the end of 2027.
Slovakia remains dependent on Russian gas imports and earns money from transit fees for supplies piped across its territory.
Fico held talks with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen earlier on Thursday but failed to get the concessions he wants and announced he would hold up approval of the sanctions package.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky urged EU leaders in a video address to adopt the strong package “targeting Russia’s oil trade, shadow tanker fleet, banks, and supply chains that bring equipment or parts for making weapons.”
Officials say, however, that a push to lower a price cap on Russian oil exports has been shelved after Washington failed to back the push as part of a broader G7 initiative.
EU leaders agree to prolong Russia sanctions: officials
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EU leaders agree to prolong Russia sanctions: officials
- EU’s sweeping sanctions includes freezing of more than 200 billion euros ($234 billion) in Russian central bank assets
Trump, Zelensky speak before Ukraine-US talks in Geneva
- Zelensky wrote on social media that he had spoken with Trump
- “Our teams work intensively and I thanked them for all their work and for their active involvement in the negotiations and the efforts to end the war”
KYIV: US President Donald Trump spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of a fresh round of talks Thursday aimed at ending Russia’s invasion, both sides said on Wednesday.
A White House official gave AFP no further details about the call, which came a day before Ukrainian and US envoys were to meet, and ahead of new trilateral talks with Russia expected in early March.
But Zelensky wrote on social media that he had spoken with Trump, and that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were on the call.
“Our teams work intensively and I thanked them for all their work and for their active involvement in the negotiations and the efforts to end the war,” he added.
According to Ukrainian presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn, the conversation “lasted about 30 minutes.”
Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov will meet Witkoff and Kushner in Geneva on Thursday, Kyiv announced.
Russian state news agency Tass later said that the Kremlin’s economic affairs envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also plans to be in the city.
“Dmitriev plans to arrive in Geneva on Thursday to pursue negotiations with the Americans on economic issues,” it cited an unnamed source as saying.
The meetings are the latest round of negotiations spearheaded by Trump that so far have failed to make meaningful progress on ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
Washington is pushing to bring an end to the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and destroyed swathes of territory, particularly in eastern and southern Ukraine.
- Preparatory talks -
Zelensky said his call with Trump “discussed the issues that our representatives will address tomorrow in Geneva during the bilateral meeting, as well as preparations for the next meeting of the full negotiating teams in a trilateral format at the very beginning of March.”
“We expect this meeting to create an opportunity to move talks to the leaders’ level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps. This is the only way to resolve all the complex and sensitive issues and finally end the war,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader has already said that a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should take place to resolve the most difficult issues in the talks.
The talks, based on an American plan unveiled at the end of last year, are deadlocked primarily on the fate of the Donbas, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicenter of the fighting.
Russia is pushing for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, and has threatened to take it by force if Kyiv does not cave at the negotiating table.
But Ukraine has rejected the demand and signalled it would not sign a deal without security guarantees that deter Russia from invading again.
