European Union leaders on Thursday extended punishing economic sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine for another six months.
“Russia sanctions unanimously extended for another six months because of a lack of Minsk Agreements implementation,” a spokesman for EU President Donald Tusk tweeted from a summit in Brussels.
The sanctions target whole sectors of the Russian economy including its valuable oil businesses.
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The EU-brokered Minsk peace agreement, endorsed by both Moscow and Kiev, was reached in late 2014 and re-worked in early 2015 but is violated regularly.
Earlier on Thursday the EU extended by one-year separate sanctions imposed over Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
These measures prohibit certain exports and imports from Crimea and ban EU-based companies from investment and tourism services in the strategic Black Sea peninsula.
