EU committing political suicide by following US: Russian diplomat

A top Russian diplomat says the European Union (EU) is committing "political suicide" by blindly following in the footsteps of the United States.

Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said in a tweet on Tuesday that the EU "is committing political suicide by following instructions from Washington with enthusiasm and without any hesitation."

"Does the EU still keeps its political identity?" he asked, rhetorically.

He made the remarks after the EU proposed additional sanctions on Russia's top lender, Sberbank. The bank, Russia's largest, has already been cut off from the international payments system SWIFT, and now faces a total asset freeze.

Under pressure from Washington, the EU has been progressively imposing sanctions on Russia since 2014, when the then-Ukrainian territory of Crimea voted in a referendum to fall under Russian sovereignty.

The bloc has massively expanded sanctions against Russia, in response to Moscow's military operation in Ukraine this year.

Since then, the United States and the EU have unleashed a flood of advanced weapons into Ukraine and imposed waves of unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers agreed on another 500 million euros (504 million dollars) in funding to supply arms to Ukraine. "Today at the EU foreign ministers meeting, a political agreement was reached on the fifth tranche of military assistance to Ukraine," Sweden's Foreign Minister Ann Linde said in a statement.

Russia has repeatedly warned against the weapon supplies to Ukraine, saying it would only prolong the war.

SS