EU fails to agree on renewing Putin sanctions, new attempt set for September 22
The EU's ambassadors committee failed late Monday to renew personal sanctions against Putin and roughly 3,000 others because not all member states submitted their votes, with another attempt scheduled for Tuesday.
The European Union's Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) failed late on Monday, September 21, to reach a decision on renewing the so-called "Putin sanctions" — personal sanctions imposed over violations of Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. The news was reported by Yevropeiska Pravda, citing several European diplomats.
The EU has still not reached consensus on extending personal sanctions against Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov, Viktor Medvedchuk, Viktor Yanukovych and roughly 3,000 other individuals and entities found responsible for the war against Ukraine.
Vote falls short
In the evening, Coreper attempted to approve, via written procedure, a 36-month — three-year — extension of the sanctions regime, but not all member states submitted their voting results, according to one of the sources. The compromise on the table also included removing Russian oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from the sanctions lists, at the request of Slovakia and France. It remains unclear which countries blocked this trade-off between delisting the two oligarchs and the three-year sanctions extension.
The next meeting of EU ambassadors is set to begin at 9:00 a.m. Kyiv time on September 22.
Background
The current sanctions regime, which the EU began building in 2014, covers individuals and entities responsible for actions undermining Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. Since 2022 it has included Putin, Russia's ruling elite and leading oligarchs, as well as former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
On September 14, the EU extended the sanctions regime for only seven days after Slovakia and France continued insisting on removing the two oligarchs from the list. It later emerged that France intended to trade the delisting of Usmanov for the release of several of its citizens held in prisons in Azerbaijan. The previous extension of personal sanctions took place on March 14, when Slovakia also pushed until the last moment for Fridman and Usmanov to be removed from the list.
