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After President Vladimir Putin ordered the nation’s first military mobilisation since World War Two to fight in Ukraine, the European Union’s foreign ministers agreed on Wednesday to seek fresh sanctions against Russia and increase the delivery of arms to Kyiv.
The 27 foreign ministers of the bloc are in New York for the annual meeting of world leaders at the UN.
Josep Borrell, the head of the EU’s foreign policy, claimed that Putin’s announcement, which included plans to seize portions of Ukrainian land and a threat to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia, revealed panic and desperation.
After ministers had a meeting to decide how to react, Borrell told reporters, “It is obvious that Putin is aiming to destroy Ukraine.”
Following a briefing from Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister of Ukraine, the ministers decided to assign their teams the task of creating an eighth set of sanctions that would continue to target those responsible for the aggression war in Ukraine and “more pertinent sectors of the Russian economy,” according to Borrell.
Mid-October will see the next official meeting of EU ministers, at which a formal sanctions package may be announced.
Additionally, the ministers decided to increase Ukraine’s access to armaments. Borrell refused to elaborate on the specific sanctions or military assistance, but he said say he thought the bloc would adopt such measures “unanimously.”
Putin was attempting to terrify and polarise the West, but his most recent remarks were a “game-changing moment,” according to Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu in an interview with Reuters.
He said the focus of the conference on Wednesday should be on unity, that a fresh round of sanctions should be implemented promptly, and that Ukraine should receive more weaponry through the European Peace Facility funding system.
A commitment to legal accountability should also be made. He warned the Kremlin’s fuhrers not to assume that their responsibility for the genocidal war would be tolerated lightly.
In the midst of an energy supply crisis that has severely impacted the bloc, maintaining unity among the 27 for a sanctions package may prove challenging. Hungary rejected the notion on Tuesday.
Reinsalu remarked, “It’s different now. “There is a proverb in aviation that says laws are written with the blood of those who perish in aviation disasters. Well, the blood and atrocities that Russia has done are written all over the (sanctions) packages.”
