EU releases new sanctions list
Published:Wednesday | April 30, 2014 | 12:00 AM
BRUSSELS (AP):
The European Union (EU) yesterday released the names of 15 new people it is targeting for sanctions because of their roles in the Ukraine crisis.
The list includes General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, and first deputy defence minister, and Lieutenant General Igor Sergun, identified as head of GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency.
The decision taken by the EU government's ambassadors in Brussels brings the total number of Russians or pro-Russian individuals in Ukraine targeted by the EU's sanctions to 48. Any bank accounts or other economic assets the sanctioned individuals hold in EU member countries are now supposed to be frozen, and they will no longer be allowed to travel to the EU's 28 member states.
The EU move comes after the United States decided to broaden its own sanctions to include seven Russian government officials and 17 companies with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia's Foreign Ministry protested that the EU action shows "a complete misunderstanding of the political situation" in Ukraine, and called it "an open invitation to local neo-Nazis to continue creating lawlessness and extrajudicial killings against the civilian population of the southeast."