EU extends sanctions against Russia for six months

The European Union has formally extended the economic restrictions on Russia for another six months over Moscow’s alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.

"On 19 December 2016, the Council prolonged the economic sanctions targeting specific sectors of the Russian economy until 31 July 2017," the Council of the European Union, which groups the 28 EU member states, said in a Monday statement.

Among other restrictions, the sanctions limit access to primary and secondary EU capital markets for five major Russian majority state-owned financial institutions and their majority-owned subsidiaries established outside of the EU, as well as three major Russian energy and three defense companies.

The sanctions also include an export and import ban on arms trade and an export ban on dual-use goods for military use or military end users in Russia.

The bans also reduce Russian access to certain sensitive technologies and services that can be used for oil production and exploration.

The leaders of the EU member countries had already at a summit in Brussels on December 15 decided to extend the sanctions against Russia.

Earlier on Monday, Moscow's permanent representative to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, said that Brussels did not have the political resolve to scrap the sanctions against Russia despite realization of the downsides of this policy.

"They, unfortunately, do not have enough political will to put an end to the sanctions, although more and more people in the European Union, including among the leaders of EU member states, of course, understand the absurdity of these sanctions decisions," he told RIA Novosti.

The EU has separately adopted travel bans and asset freezes against Russian and Ukrainian figures over the conflict. The punitive measures will expire in March. Similar sanctions related to the issue of Crimea, a former Ukrainian territory that the EU claims was annexed by Russia in 2014, will run to the end of June 2017.

SS