European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announces a new package of sanctions against Russia at the EU headquarters in Brussels on June 10, 2025. – Nicolas Tucat/AFP/Getty Images

The European Union announced a new package of sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, saying that Moscow’s daily deadly attacks against Ukraine show that it is not interested in peace – despite recent diplomatic efforts.

The new package – the 18th since Russia launched its full-scale unprovoked invasion against its neighbor in 2022 – is designed to further target the Kremlin’s ability to make money from its oil and gas production.

The proposal includes lowering the price cap on Russian oil exports from $60 to $45 per barrel and introducing a full transaction ban on Russian banks and financial institutions in third countries that help Russia circumvent existing sanctions.

The EU said it is also proposing a ban on the use of Russian energy infrastructure, forbidding any EU operator from engaging directly or indirectly in any transactions that involve the Nord Stream pipelines.

The new package will need to be approved by the EU’s 27 member states. That could be complicated given previous concerns raised by some more pro-Kremlin governments, such as Hungary and Slovakia, about further sanctions targeting Russia.

While both those countries have previously threatened to block new rounds of sanctions, so far they have ultimately voted in favor of them.

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said the sanctions were necessary “because strength is the only language that Russia will understand.”

“We want peace for Ukraine. Despite weeks of diplomatic attempts, despite (Ukraine’s) President (Volodymyr) Zelensky’s offer of an unconditional ceasefire, Russia continues to bring death and destruction to Ukraine. Russia’s goal is not peace, it is to impose the rule of might. Therefore, we are ramping up pressure on Russia,” von der Leyen said at a news conference in Brussels.

The leaders of Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Poland last month told Russian leader Vladimir Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire or face possible “massive” sanctions. Putin ignored the ultimatum, proposing instead “direct talks” between Moscow and Kyiv.

But two rounds of talks in Istanbul, Turkey, have made it clear Russia is sticking to its maximalist demands that would essentially equate to Ukraine’s capitulation.

“Russia’s ability to continue the war is equal to its ability to sell their oil and bypass financial barriers,” Zelensky said Tuesday night, calling the European sanctions package “an important step” and also condemning the lack of similar measures from the United States.

“Russia has been constantly increasing the number of munitions in its strikes. This is a steady trend, and it means that Moscow is not afraid of anyone in the world,” the Ukrainian leader added.

“Putin wants to continue killing and is taking advantage of the fact that he is not getting a strong response. He does not hear Washington. And this speaks volumes to the world, to everyone.”

Targeting Russian energy

Explaining why the EU has targeted Russia’s energy sector, the Commission chief said oil exports still represent one third of Russian government revenues.

“We need to cut this source of revenue,” she said.

The oil price cap was introduced by the EU and G7 countries in December 2022.

The cap, which applies to Russia’s seaborne oil exports, prohibits Western companies from providing shipping, insurance and other services needed to export the fuel unless it is priced below the threshold.

By enforcing a price cap, the EU and its allies have tried to diminish a key source of revenue for the Kremlin while still allowing its oil to flow to the global energy market – because cutting Russia’s supplies completely could destabilize the market and cause prices to shoot up.

Von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the price cap needs lowering because global oil prices had fallen since the cap was first introduced and now trade “very close” to the $60 level.

The price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, has dropped 18% since the price cap on Russian crude took effect on December 5, 2022. It was trading at almost $68 a barrel late morning Eastern Time (ET) on Tuesday.

The bloc also wants to harden sanctions on Russia’s banking sector. Shortly after the invasion, the United States, EU, Britain and Canada jointly banned some Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging service – a high-security network connecting thousands of financial institutions around the world. That has made it far more difficult for those banks to send and receive money from abroad.

Now, the Commission wants to go a step further and prevent any EU operator, such a a business, from conducting a transaction with a list of sanctioned Russian banks. It also plans to add another 22 of Moscow’s banks to that list. Additionally, the bloc wants to extend the transaction ban to financial institutions in third countries that help Russia circumvent existing sanctions.

Von der Leyen said the latest package of sanctions will also broaden the current ban on materials and technologies that can be exported to Russia, adding: “We want to make sure that Russia does not find ways to modernize its weapons with European technologies.”

The sanctions will also include new measures against 22 Russian and foreign companies providing direct or indirect support to Russia’s military and industrial complex.

CNN’s Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.

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Calling the sanctions “robust” and “hard-biting,” von der Leyen said the Russian economy was already buckling under the pressure of the EU’s past measures and the new package would pummel it further.

“Russia continues to bring death and destruction to Ukraine,” she said at a joint press conference with the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas. “Our message is clear: This war must end.”

Kallas said it was “clear that Russia does not want peace” and needed to pay the price for its “outright illegal” war.

“Russia is cruel, aggressive and a danger to us all,” she added.

Brussels has sought to build support in Washington for punishing new measures to empty Moscow’s war chest. The newest package of sanctions come ahead of a G7 summit in Alberta, Canada this weekend, with Ukraine invited to take part, where the new, reduced oil price cap will be discussed, as the EU executive cannot unilaterally lower it.

EU member countries are expected to sign off on the Commission’s latest sanctions proposal swiftly, with a deal expected before the end of this month.

An apartment building hit by a Russian drone strike, in Odesa, Ukraine, on June 10. PHOTO: REUTERS

BRUSSELS – The European Union on June 10 proposed slashing a price cap on Russia’s global oil exports, as part of a new package of sanctions over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

The move comes ahead of a Group of 7 (G-7) summit in Canada next week where allies will push US President Donald Trump to be more aggressive in punishing the Kremlin.

“We are ramping up pressure on Russia, because strength is the only language that Russia will understand,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.

“Our message is very clear, this war must end. We need a real ceasefire, and Russia has to come to the negotiating table with a serious proposal.”

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, suggested cutting the current oil price cap from US$60 to US$45 as Moscow drags its feet on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The cap is a G-7 initiative aimed at limiting the amount of money Russia makes by exporting oil to countries across the world.

Set at US$60 by the G-7 in 2022, it is designed to limit the price Moscow can sell oil around the world by banning shipping firms and insurance companies dealing with Russia to export above that amount.

To have most impact, the EU and other G-7 partners need to get the United States to follow suit and agree to the cut in level.

But Mr Trump so far has frustrated Western allies by refusing to impose sanctions on Russia, despite President Vladimir Putin’s failure to agree to a Ukraine ceasefire.

“My assumption is that we do that together as G-7,” Dr von der Leyen said. “We have started that as G-7, it was successful as a measure from the G-7, and I want to continue this measure as G-7.”

‘Massive’ sanctions threatened

Mr Trump last week said he had a deadline to sanction Russia “in my brain”, but warned that he may also target Kyiv if no advances are made in his peace push.

European leaders in May threatened Moscow with “massive” sanctions if it did not agree a truce.

“Russia lies about its desire for peace. Putin is taking the world for a ride. Together with the United States, we can really force Putin to negotiate seriously,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

As part of its 18th round of sanctions since Russia’s 2022 invasion, the EU also proposed measures to stop the defunct Baltic Sea gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 from being brought back online.

Officials said they would also look to target some 70 more vessels in the “shadow fleet” of ageing tankers used by Russia to circumvent oil export curbs.

The EU in addition is looking to sever ties with a further 22 Russian banks and add more companies, including in China, to a blacklist of those helping Moscow’s military.

One EU diplomat described the latest proposals as “one of the most substantive and significant packages we’ve discussed recently”.

“It will hurt Russia’s ability to finance its war machine. Now let’s see how the discussions evolve.”

The sanctions will need to be agreed by all 27 EU countries, and could face opposition from Moscow-friendly countries Hungary and Slovakia. AFP

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The head of the EU executive also said the Commission would look to lower the oil price cap, a limit on the sales price for Russian crude oil which is decided at G7 level.

Targeting Russia’s energy and banking sectors would have a “real impact” on the Kremlin, but doing so would be tricky because of Hungarian opposition, an EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss the preparations, told POLITICO earlier this week.

Asked by POLITICO whether the United States was on board with the new raft of sanctions, von der Leyen said she was “in close contact with Senator [Lindsey] Graham,” the U.S. Republican senator who is a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Graham has proposed a package of punitive 500 percent tariffs on Russia.

“We are very much aligned on the fields where the sanctions must be,” von der Leyen said.

While Graham is a Donald Trump ally, the U.S. president has not publicly indicated he is ready to enact such punishing sanctions on Russia. Trump told reporters on Thursday there would be no progress toward peace in Ukraine until he meets with Putin, as much-hyped Moscow-Kyiv talks in Turkey turned into a huge nothingburger.

Delegations from the two countries sat down in Istanbul on Friday for the first direct talks since shortly after the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, but Putin’s decision to skip talks and send a lower-level delegations has been read as an unwillingness to engage in peace discussions

UK announces wide-ranging sanctions on Russia as Putin launches his biggest ever drone attack against Ukraine

100 sanctions targets across Russian military, energy, financial sectors and those conducting Putin’s information war against Ukraine

UK and partners are also working to tighten the Oil Price Cap, further restricting critical oil revenues for Putin’s war machine

As President Putin ruthlessly intensifies his strikes against innocent Ukrainians, the UK is ramping up pressure with raft of 100 new sanctions.

The latest sanctions targets include entities supporting Russia’s military machine, energy exports and information war, as well as financial institutions helping to fund Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Saturday, Russia fired 273 drones at Ukrainian cities, the biggest drone onslaught of the war. A strike on a bus in Sumy killed 9 civilians.

Putin has so far not put in place the full, unconditional ceasefire that President Trump has called for, and which President Zelenskyy endorsed over 2 months ago.

The UK’s latest sanctions action comes as the EU prepares to announce its 17th package of sanctions against Russia, in a co-ordinated effort to secure a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

Today’s measures sanction the supply chains of deadly Russian weapons systems, including Iskander missiles. This will protect Ukrainian lives, and our collective security by disrupting Russia’s military machine.

Putin has repeatedly fired Iskander missiles into crowded civilian areas with a callous disregard for life. He used these weapons during the strike against Sumy on 13 April that killed 34 civilians including children, some of them heading for Palm Sunday services.

UK and other Western sanctions are having a severe effect on Russia’s economy. Russian GDP shrank in the first quarter of the year and the non-defence economy has been in recession for some time. Security and defence spending is now over 40% of the federal budget, and Putin has had to raise taxes and slash social spending in order to continue the war.

Every rouble by which we cut Kremlin revenues diminishes Putin’s ability to sow chaos, division and disorder across the world and protects the British people, increasing security and prosperity at home.

As the Prime Minister set out at the European Political Community summit on Friday, people in Ukraine and across the world have paid the price for Putin’s aggression and now he must pay the price for avoiding peace.

Foreign Secretary, David Lammy said:

Putin’s latest strikes once again show his true colours as a warmonger. We urge him to agree a full, unconditional ceasefire right away so there can be talks on a just and lasting peace. We have been clear that delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolve to help Ukraine to defend itself and use our sanctions to restrict Putin’s war machine.

Today’s sanctions also target 14 more members of the Social Design Agency (SDA), which carries out Kremlin-funded information operations that are designed to undermine sovereignty, democracy, and the rule of law in Ukraine and across the world.

The UK previously sanctioned the SDA and several of its leaders in 2024. We are now targeting all levels of the organisation.

In addition, today’s measures will strike at the heart of Putin’s efforts to get around our sanctions and help block his failing attempts to reconnect to the international economy.

Today’s action targets 46 financial institutions that help Russian attempts to evade sanctions, as well as the St Petersburg Currency Exchange, and the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency which insures Russian banks. These new sanctions will further isolate the Russian economy and disrupt Russia’s revenue streams.

Finally, the UK will also sanction 18 more ships in the ‘shadow fleet’ carrying Russians oil, along with the fleet’s enablers. The Prime Minister announced 110 shadow fleet related sanctions ahead of his visit to Kyiv earlier this month.

Today’s targets include John Michael Ormerod, a British national who procured ships for Russia’s shadow fleet, and 2 Russian captains of shadow fleet tankers. This action imposes a personal cost on those who are supporting Russia’s trade in oil and is another step in the Foreign Secretary’s personal mission to constrain the Kremlin and a crucial part of the Plan for Change to ensure a secure Britain.

The UK is also working with partners to tighten the Oil Price Cap that limits the price that Russia can charge for its oil if transported using G7 services like insurance and shipping. We are reviewing the $60 crude price level, with a view to lowering the cap closer to the cost of production and hitting Putin where it hurts by striking at his oil revenues.

Background

The Full list of today’s targets can be found here