Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico agreed to lift his veto, the European Union has agreed to new sanctions on Russia. The European Union has now decided to impose new sanctions on Russia’s financial and energy sectors as a way to tighten the lid on the Kremlin’s war machine and to force a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine.
The sanctions were decided in Brussels and endorsed to ban all transactions with 22 Russian banks, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and its subsidiaries, and the currently closed direct and indirect use of the underwater Nord Stream pipelines. Moscow is aiming to restart the course sometime in the future.
Fico said that Slovakia won’t block new sanctions against Russia.
Looks like Putin just lost another puppet and this time in the EU. It should hurt.https://t.co/3SBETbZjY8 pic.twitter.com/4h90kKCWAQ
— Victoria (@victoriaslog) July 17, 2025
The EU has also transformed the crude oil price cap from Russia which was at $60 per barrel since December 2022, to 15% lower than the average market price. The new price of Russian Crude Oil will be $47.6 per barrel and be automatically adjusted every six months, with the possibility of ad-hoc tweaks if the market fluctuations require.
The EU bloc has also decided to forbid the imports of petroleum products sourced from refining Russian crude and sold across the bloc under a different label. These mostly come from India and Turkey. The restriction also includes 11 companies outside Russia which are accused of circumvention including 4 in mainland China and three in Hong Kong.
“We are striking at the heart of Russia’s war machine,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission and added “The pressure is on. It will stay on until Putin ends this war”, reported The Guardian.
