European Union governments agreed on Wednesday to an 11th package of sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, aimed at stopping other countries and companies from circumventing existing measures, Reuters reports.
The new package, tweeted by Sweden as EU president, forbids transit via Russia of an expanded list of goods and technology which might aid Russia's military or security sector.
The biggest novelty, diplomats said, was enabling restrictions on the sale of sensitive dual-use goods and technology to third countries that might sell it on to Russia. Names of such countries can be added to an annex of the EU sanctions regulation with unanimous agreement of all 27 members.
EU officials have long been concerned about a surge of demand for EU products from Russia's neighbours like Armenia, Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan and from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey or China.
Moscow justifies the war on Ukraine as an existential battle for its own security and says the West is failing in an aggressive attempt to strangle its economy and crush its power.
The EU package extends the suspension of EU broadcasting licences of five Russian state-controlled media.
To curb the practice of ships loading Russian crude oil or petroleum products at sea, the package bans access to EU ports for ships which engage in ship-to-ship transfers if there is cause to suspect the cargo was of Russian origin.
