EU Official Theatens Sanctions Against Countries Supporting Russia

The EU will use sanctions to penalize third countries helping Russia fight its war against Ukraine, including those that deliver weapons or other lethal aid to Moscow, Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, warned this week.

Borrell, in a Nov. 11 opinion piece in Foreign Policy, urged other countries to help the EU “prevent the circumvention of these sanctions,” adding that the bloc will go after nations that flout those restrictions.

“If countries are delivering weapons to help Russia wage its illegal war -- as North Korea did with ammunition, other weapon systems, and now even soldiers, and Iran is believed to have done with the delivery of drones and more recently, ballistic missiles -- then the EU and other countries will respond with the imposition of specific sanctions,” he wrote.

In the article, titled “In Defense of Sanctions,” Borrell argued that EU sanctions have worked to slow Russia’s military and disrupt international terror groups, “making it difficult for them to finance their operations.” But he also acknowledged that sanctions “are not a silver bullet, and they will not stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin from continuing his” war against Ukraine.

“All 193 U.N. member states have the obligation to preserve the international order based on the U.N. Charter,” he said. “Faced with clear breaches of international law, the EU is ready to bear its share of responsibility for a just and orderly world by imposing sanctions on those who try to undermine it.”