Ukraine can only count on the so-called “Young Europeans” in the matter of imposing sanctions against Russia.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin told reporters about this today, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“National sanctions are simple because they do not require an approval procedure, which takes quite a long time in the European Union. We have done this with our Lithuanian friends and are working with some other countries. This is very important,” Klimkin said.
He refused to answer the question of which countries other than Lithuania are ready to introduce anti-Russian sanctions, but said that the ministers of these countries will visit Mariupol next week.
As for the European Union, there, according to Klimkin, “there are different ideas that are being discussed today.”
“Including regarding additional sanctions against Russian ports and ships. There are partial sanctions. The process will not be very fast. Some sanctions will be included in separate packages. But I cannot talk about this in advance until our problems announce it. There are ideas regarding Russian companies, restrictions on Russia’s access to financial markets, restrictions in the energy sector. There are things that in their effect will be no less than turning off Swift,” Klimkin said.
As for disabling the Swift payment system, the Ukrainian minister said that the West would resort to this measure as a last resort.