New sanctions on Russia and now China, will they work?
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014.
The invasion became the largest attack on a European country since World War II.
Putin has still got his Russian forces attacking another European country after two years and in a response the EU have issued fresh sanctions.
Screenshot from my X account of a post from @EU2024BE (Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2024) that first highlighted to me the news.
What happened?
Yesterday The EU announced that the EU amabassadors had agreed in principle the 13th round of sanctions as a result of Russian's aggression against Ukraine.
With the 2nd anniversary coming on Saturday the 24th they were desperate to get it approved.
Despite Hungary as usual trying to stall things and help their buddy Russia, it is going to get the go ahead.
We won't know all the details for all the sanctions until the publication in the EU's official journal.
This is expected to happen later this week. In the meantime we can glean information from the words of the president.
"We must keep degrading Putin's war machine," said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
Is it only Russia that is to be targeted?
The great news as far as I am concerned is the willingness now for the EU to finally pull their finger out and broaden who will be sanctioned!
Yes for the first time target companies in mainland China suspected of helping the Kremlin get hold of forbidden items have been put on the naughty list so to speak. Yes the blacklist now has Chinese companies.
In a change of tack. there is a heavy focus on fighting circumvention and going after firms around the world accused of providing Russia with advanced technology and military goods manufactured in the EU, particularly drone components.
To this end along with the Chinese companies. they have been joined with companies from no surprises North Korea and again no surprise companies from Turkey.
All in all it is believed that 200 entities and people have been blacklisted and that total now comprises over 2000 names.
Will these sanctions work?
Whilst I think it is great that the EU is actually doing something. The fact remains that Putin is personally not affected, and it is he whom should be targeted.
Additionally Russia society itself is getting what it wants, so no they are not working as much as the EU block hoped.
What else can they do though?
Sources and Reference documents
EU agrees new sanctions on Russia, blacklisting companies in mainland China for the first time
All ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman TengoLoTodo unless otherwise stated, note lead image is generated with AI on pixlr .com from a prompt by me.
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@tengolotodo.leo February 22nd 2024
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