An official said that the European Union envoys decided to freeze assets in Europe owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Moscow indicated on Friday its readiness to send delegations to Minsk for talks with Ukraine, after the Russian invasion and siege of the capital Kiev.
Reuters quoted the official as saying that European Union envoys had decided to freeze assets in Europe of Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while the Financial Times reported that Putin and Lavrov would not be subject to a travel ban, indicating the EU's willingness to keep the door to diplomacy. open.
European Council President Charles Michel said - in statements in Brussels - that a third package of sanctions against Russia is on the way, and added that the suffering of innocents must be stopped.
Michel's statement came before an emergency meeting of European Union foreign ministers, and hours after a summit of EU leaders during which a new package of sanctions against Russia was approved.
While German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said that the European Union countries will study all possible sanctions against Russia, a German government spokesman said that the suspension of the "Swift" financial system would have significant effects on the country's economy, while British Defense Minister Ben Wallace stated that his country would like In isolating Russia from the SWIFT financial system.
On the other hand, the Speaker of the Russian Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian parliament) Valentina Matvienko announced today, Friday, that Moscow has prepared a package of retaliatory sanctions, and that it knows the weaknesses of the West, as she put it.
Matvienko said Russia had prepared well for the sanctions and had taken all precautionary measures.
And the leaders of the European Union countries imposed a new package of sanctions on Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine, and said that the repercussions of the sanctions on Moscow would be enormous and dangerous.
Conversations with Kiev
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was ready to send a delegation to Minsk, Belarus, for talks with Ukraine, a day after Moscow launched a large-scale invasion of its southern neighbor.
Peskov told Russian news agencies that Russia is ready to send a delegation that includes officials of the foreign and defense ministries, adding that disarmament should be an essential part of this.
While Reuters reported that Ukraine has indicated its willingness to discuss declaring itself a neutral country.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the European response to the Russian invasion "too slow", and demanded that all response measures be put "on the table."
"How will you defend yourself if you are so slow to help Ukraine?" Zelensky asked in a new statement.
"Cancellation of visas for Russians? Severing Swift's (Russia's global banking system) ties? Complete isolation of Russia? Recalling ambassadors? Oil embargo? Today everything should be on the table because this is a threat to all of us, to the whole of Europe."
Zelensky urged Europe to move quickly and more forcefully to impose sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, and accused Western allies of playing politics at a time when Russian forces were advancing on Kiev.
In the same context, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the reaction of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Western countries to Russia's attack on Ukraine was not decisive, adding that he hoped the alliance summit today will result in a more assertive approach.
"The European Union and all Western mentalities have not shown a serious firm stance. They are constantly giving advice to Ukraine, it is not possible to get anything from advice. When we look for steps that have been taken, we don't see any," he told reporters.