EU Proposes 117 New Russia Sanctions After Trump Diesel Deal

The European Union’s diplomatic service put 117 new sanctions listings before EU ambassadors on Oct. 21, targeting the energy and financial sectors that bankroll Russia’s war against Ukraine. The draft, seen by the Kyiv Independent, names 12 individuals and 105 entities. If adopted, the listings would trigger a transaction ban with the EU and a freeze on assets held in the bloc.

The timing is hard to miss. The proposal arrived barely two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to import diesel, a refined oil product, from Russia. EU leaders condemned that deal widely when they met in Brussels on Oct. 15-16, along with what the report described as a broader shift in U.S. attitude toward Ukraine.

Targeting the Money Behind the War

Oil sits at the centre of the package. The draft includes 31 listings tied to Russia’s oil processing, refining and export capacity, spanning the country from St. Petersburg to Sakhalin. It also names 52 banking and financial institutions, two entities that process Russian liquefied natural gas, and a steel company operating from Russian-occupied territory in Donetsk Oblast.

An Irish Council Presidency spokesperson said the European External Action Service, or EEAS, “proposed 117 additional listings targeting sectors which raise revenue for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, such as the financial sector, energy sector, and the Russian shadow fleet.”

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, oversees the bloc’s sanctions and made the logic plain. “We see that we have to pressure the aggressor to stop the war, not the victim to surrender,” she said, according to the report.

Closing the Loopholes Abroad

Sanctions only bite if they can’t be dodged. The draft targets third-country entities accused of helping Moscow evade existing restrictions, including 12 in the United Arab Emirates and companies in Oman, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Seychelles. A listing could also complicate dealings with companies in third countries that want to protect commercial ties with the EU. That puts pressure on firms that have profited from acting as intermediaries.

Some of the 12 individuals proposed for listing have ties to the e-commerce platforms Ozon and Wildberries, which had traded in products that help Russia’s military effort, and to Moscow’s search engine Yandex. The report said Ukrainian military strikes had successfully targeted all three companies. The EU was also preparing sanctions against 15 more companies belonging to Russia’s military-industrial complex.

The draft isn’t purely punitive. It proposes removing one entity in a third country. The legal text says the entity had “ceased the activity which led to its inclusion in the list and has committed to refrain from any such activity in the future.”

What Comes Next

Nothing is final yet. Sanctions experts appointed by the 27 EU countries will review the proposed listings. They’ll then return to ambassadors for approval before going to ministers for a final vote. Every step requires agreement among member states, and that process has often been slow.

Why This Matters:

Support for Ukraine is a strategic question for Europe, but it’s also a moral one: the revenue targeted by these listings helps pay for a war that is killing Ukrainian civilians. The proposal shows the EU trying to act collectively as the United States, according to the report, shifts its stance. No single member state could close these revenue channels alone, from refineries in Sakhalin to intermediaries in Dubai. Yet the gap between a draft and a binding legal act is real, and it runs through 27 capitals. The test now is whether European governments can quickly turn the language agreed at the Brussels summit into adopted sanctions, and enforce them rigorously enough to matter.