EU ready to launch sanctions against Russia in days of Ukraine attack

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EU ready to launch sanctions against Russia in days of Ukraine attack

A senior official said that the European Union will be ready to launch sanctions against Russia within days of a military attack on Ukraine, as the volatile security crisis enters a new critical phase.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday are expected to issue a warning to Moscow, amid simmering tensions over Russia's buildup of 100,000 troops and heavy weapons along its border with Ukraine.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, will brief the ministers via a video link on his talks with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva last week. Both sides agreed to keep talking, despite the fact that the latest diplomatic effort didn't produce a breakthrough.

EU sources are pessimistic about the Kremlin's climb from maximalist demands that would give Russia a sphere of influence in eastern Europe. Ministers meeting on Monday will not discuss specific sanctions.

They are expected to echo earlier EU warnings of massive consequences without going into specifics.

If a serious development occurs in Russian troops crossing the border, the reaction will be very quick and the reaction will be very clear. A senior EU official said that it will be a question of days and not a question of weeks. The official predicted that there would be more remarkable unity among the bloc's 27 countries than in 2014 when sweeping economic sanctions against Russia were adopted.

There are different sensitivities, but all member states have an acute sense of what is the European Union interest, which is at the end of the day a version of their national interest, the official said.

It is no secret that western allies are divided on how to respond to Russian military aggression, despite the repeated assertions of unity. The US president, Joe Biden, said that Nato allies would have to fight over what they would do in the event of a minor incursion of Ukraine. The White House subsequently rowed back on was seen in Brussels as undiplomatic rather than untrue.

There are differences in the EU, where sanctions have to be agreed by unanimity. Germany's foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has expressed doubts about the possible removal of Russian banks from the Swift global payments system, one option under discussion. Poland and the Baltic states think it is a mistake to take anything off the table.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's foreign minister, accused Germany over the weekend of not showing enough support for his country. He expressed disappointment on Twitter about Germany's apparent hesitations on Swift, refusal to supply offensive weapons, and recent comments from the head of the German navy, who said Ukraine would never get Crimea back.

V-Adm Kay-Achim Schnbach, who also said it was nonsense that Russia wanted to invade Ukraine, resigned on Saturday, while the German government distanced itself from his views. After his resignation, Kuleba said German partners must stop such words and actions to undermine unity and encourage Vladimir Putin to launch a new attack on Ukraine. Kuleba's criticism of Germany's coalition government is shared by many in the European parliament last month, where a large majority called for sanctions against Russia to include exclusion from Swift, which is used in more than 200 countries and territories.

Michael Gahler, a German MEP from the centre-right Christian Democratic Union party, said that we should not be restricting the scope of various actions and making it easier for Putin to have options for the violent alternative. Gahler, the parliament's standing rapporteur on Ukraine, said it was unfortunate that Germany was not delivering offensive weapons to Ukraine.

Germany s coalition government refuses to export weapons to conflict zones in line with longstanding policy rooted in the country's history.

Gahler said the Nord Stream 2 pipeline connecting Russia to Germany should not be operational in the event of war. The MEP is calling for EU officials to look into boosting gas supplies from southern pipelines and liquefied natural gas from the US.

It is not just Germany that has raised questions about EU unity. When it was announced last week that Hungary's autocratic prime minister Viktor Orb n would meet with Putin on 1 February to discuss a Russian nuclear power station in Hungary, the Sputnik vaccine and Hungary s gas supply contracts, alarm bells were set off by alarm bells.

While possible sanctions against Russia are a closely guarded secret, it is clear that there is a sliding scale of options, with the harshest measures being considered for a full-scale attack. EU officials are looking at banning key technology to Russia, visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials and oligarchs close to the Kremlin, as well as banning the export of key technology to Russia.

Diplomats say that a large-scale invasion will make an EU decision simpler, as it will bring the bloc together in a large-scale response, just as the downing of Flight MH 17 in July 2014 bolstered unity on sweeping economic sanctions.

Diplomats say the EU will have to face a more complex choice if Russia pursues other forms of aggression, such as cyberwarfare and disinformation, but not a military attack. EU officials believe Russia is responsible for the recent cyber-attack on Ukrainian government websites.

Last month, EU leaders warned Russia that there would be massive consequences and severe cost in response to any further military aggression. Central and eastern European countries argue that sanctions should only happen if there is a military attack.

Countries will weigh the impact of sanctions on their economic interests. A senior diplomat said that there was a debate on how harsh economic sanctions can be because they always come back to you in the EU. Individual member states are more generous with the sanctions that hurt them less than others. That's the name of the game.