Borrell Says EU Almost Exhausted Means Of Sanctioning Russia

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th March, 2023) The European Union has almost exhausted its capacity to impose any more sanctions on Russia, but the bloc may still continue to boost its financial and military aid for Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said.

"There is not much more to do from the point of view of sanctions, but we can continue to increase financial and military support," Borrell told the Euractiv news website after an informal meeting of EU development ministers in Stockholm.

The EU's top diplomat also said that it would have been "strange that one year after the invasion began, there would be much more options left," adding that the bloc was "getting to the end of the ladder," as quoted by the news portal.

Russia has been able to largely withstand the sanctions pressure that the United States, the European Union and their allies have been piling on it since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The United Nations estimated in its January World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) report that the Russian economy contracted by just about 3% last year as opposed to the projected 15%.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the policy of containing and weakening Moscow is part of the West's long-term strategy, while sanctions have instead hit the entire global economy and worsened the lives of millions of people.