The United States will announce new sanctions against Russia on Friday, targeting more than 500 entities linked "to its supporters and its war machine", a department spokesperson told AFP on Thursday, February 22. American Treasury.

"This will be the largest tranche since Putin's invasion of Ukraine began," she said, stressing that these sanctions will be taken by both the Treasury Department and the State Department.

The White House had indicated earlier in the day that "major" sanctions against Russia would be announced on Friday, in response to the death of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, but also to mark the two years that have passed since the invasion of Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden met the widow and daughter of Alexei Navalny in San Francisco on Thursday.

The 81-year-old democrat accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being "responsible" for his death, announced on February 16.

“We already have sanctions but we are considering additional ones,” he had already said on Monday.

The United States and the European Union have already applied a battery of sanctions against Moscow since the outbreak of war following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Biden administration regularly assures Ukraine of its support , but US military aid of $60 billion is currently blocked in Congress.

Additional UK sanctions

The United Kingdom, for its part, announced additional sanctions against Russia on Thursday, targeting more than 50 personalities and companies, particularly in sectors which allow the Russian army to supply itself with ammunition, missiles and explosives, and "key sources of income for Russia", such as trade in metals, diamonds and energy resources.

London also announced new deliveries of missiles to the Ukrainians.

For his part, the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell urged European Union (EU) member states to do more to ship ammunition to Ukraine which is suffering from an arms shortage.

“Ukrainian soldiers are determined to fight but they need ammunition. Urgently and in huge quantities,” Josep Borrell wrote to the Foreign and Defense Ministers of the Twenty-Seven in a letter dated Wednesday.

“Delays in the delivery of ammunition have a cost in human lives and weaken Ukraine’s defense capabilities,” he added.

The EU had promised to supply Ukraine with one million shells over the past year.

However, Member States are only expected to achieve just over half of this target by the deadline they set next month.

“Ukraine needs more ammunition”

According to Josep Borrell, by the end of 2024, the EU will have to increase its delivery target to reach 1,155,000 shells, but "Ukraine needs more ammunition", he insists.

“I therefore think it is my duty and my responsibility to appeal to you once again to see what more we can do to support Ukraine,” wrote the head of European diplomacy.

According to Josep Borrell, the options offered to Member States are divided between "digging deeper into your stockpile", placing more orders with European companies, buying ammunition where it is available and financing Ukrainian industry.

“What is needed is immediate financial liquidity. Doing nothing is not an option,” he writes.

While Saturday will mark the second anniversary of the outbreak of the large-scale attack on Moscow, kyiv finds itself in an "extremely difficult" position on the front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted on Monday.

The Russian army claimed Thursday to have captured the village of Pobeda, in eastern Ukraine, a new claim for conquest a few days after that of the town of Avdiïvka.

And on Friday, a Russian drone attack hit a commercial area in the Black Sea port of Odessa, killing one person, the Ukrainian military said, adding that others may still be under the rubble.

With AFP

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