EU and GB impose new sanctions on Russia

Brussels (AP) — Thoroughbred horse, truffle, owner of a football team and director of a media company.

The European Union denied access to the luxury of oligarchs on Tuesday and imposed new sanctions on Russia to prevent Russia from repaying profitable steel exports. The United Kingdom also joined the penalty.

The 27 country bloc tried to move away from sanctions that would affect Russian energy supplies, and instead focused on multi-billion dollar measures, hampering Russia's ability to work in the world market by prohibiting EU rating agencies from cooperating with Russian customers.

“These new sanctions will exhaust its resources to further isolate Russia and finance a barbaric war; therefore, Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, which is a rather doubtful honor.” Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice President of the European Commission, said.

The ongoing punishment of the bloc against Moscow for invading neighboring Ukraine was carried out after consulting with Western allies from the United Kingdom to the United States.

They jointly agreed to deny Russia's preferred state status, which would lead to the company's privileged position in the Western economy. The UK announced sanctions against 350 individuals and businesses on Tuesday and promised to ban the export of luxury goods to Russia.

In addition, the UK will impose an additional 35% tariff on the import of Russian and Belarusian products, from vodka and fish to iron, oilseeds and grains.

The measures will “further isolate the Russian economy from global trade, ensuring that it does not benefit from a rules-based international system that is not respected,” said British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak.

Russia also imposed sanctions, putting US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior federal officials on the list. The White House emphasized the importance of the bill.

“None of us plan a leisure trip to Russia and none of us have a bank account that we do not have access to, so we will move on.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

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Danica Kirka from London and Chris Megherian from Washington contributed to this office.