Klimkin: EU Has Been Working on New Sanctions against the Russian Federation for Several Months Because of the Kerch Strait Bridge

Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin assures that the decision on new sanctions will definitely be made. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says the European Union has already been working for several months on tougher sanctions against the Russian Federation over the illegal construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to Russian-occupied Crimea. UNIAN reports that the minister told this to journalists in Kyiv. In particular, talking about the EU’s expansion of sanctions against Russian companies involved in the illegal construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge, he said that “the EU is considering this” and added that full support from all 28 EU member states is needed. “The process itself, unfortunately, on the one hand, is not very fast, but a decision is necessarily made”, Klimkin said. “When I said there would definitely be sanctions for the so-called “Crimean elections”, they were imposed, but their elaboration lasted several months and work on new sanctions will also take several months”, the minister said. He also said the U.S. sanctions imposed after the poisoning of former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury had formally came into force today. “You could see the sanctions pressure growing. It is growing on the part of the United States; it is growing on the part of Europe. It is not just tangible, it is depriving Russia of the ability to develop and feel like a civilized country”, Klimkin said. “And this pressure is efficient now and will certainly continue to be in future, and we will work with everyone not only to expand these sanctions in quantity by increasing the number of companies and so on, but also to make these sanctions affect Russia in a consistent manner”, the minister said. Source: UNIAN