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The European Union will bar Russian airlines from its airspace as it sends weapons and resources to Ukraine in a historic response to Russia’s war on its western neighbor, international officials said Sunday.
“We are shutting down EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian-registered or Russian-controlled aircraft,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, in a statement.
“So let me be very clear,” she said. “Our airspace will be closed to every Russian plane – and that includes the private jets of oligarchs.
Von der Leyen added, “For the first time ever, the European Union [also] will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack.
“This is a watershed moment.”
The EU aims to spend $507 million of its money on weapons for Ukraine, along with more than $53 million on aid like medical supplies, a commission source told Reuters. The 30-nation bloc has a European Peace Facility, or fund, with a limit of about $6.4 billion for such efforts.
“Another taboo has fallen — the taboo that the European Union was not providing arms in a war,” said the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
The EU also said it is targeting Russian ally Belarus with new sanctions for being “complicit in this vicious attack against Ukraine.” Measures against the country, which has housed Russian troops, include blocking exports of such things as tobacco and construction materials including wood, cement and steel to EU countries.
The decisions came after foreign ministers of the EU countries on Saturday discussed a new package of sanctions, and leaders from Poland and Lithuania asked the European Union to go further in their support for Ukraine in the face of a Russian invasion.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said it was important that Ukraine was provided with “real military help.”
Earlier Sunday, the European Commission announced that Germany was committing $113 billion to its own special armed-forces fund to bolster its defenses.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his country will send an additional $53 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
“In the last days, the world has witnessed awe-inspiring displays of bravery and heroism from the Ukrainian people in response to those who seek to obliterate their freedom by force,” the British prime minister said, according to the Guardian.
“The UK will not turn our backs in Ukraine’s hour of need. We are providing all the economic and military support we can to help those Ukrainians risking everything to protect their country.”
During a Sunday press call, a senior Joe Biden administration official said the United States and the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have opted to “take further measures to isolate Russia from the global financial system and the global economy.”
Labeling the new package an “unprecedented act of global sanctions coordination,” the official said the alliance of countries agreed to:
- “Disconnect sanctioned Russian banks from SWIFT,” also known as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a global financial system that helps with financial transactions and money transfers for banks located around the world.
- “Undermine the Russian Central Bank’s ability to defend the ruble,” Russia’s official currency.
- Create a “joint task force” with the aim of finding luxury assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs, including yachts, jets, cars, and homes.
Russia’s foreign adversaries also took a slew of measures to try to further isolate the Kremlin.
- The Czech Foreign Ministry warned against travel to Russia on Sunday and requested that its citizens leave the country amid the turmoil
- Ukraine’s National Police said Sunday that it is working with volunteers to take down crucial Web sites in Russia and Belarus through “massive cyber attacks” on “important government and critical information systems.”
- European Union foreign-affairs ministers banned all transactions with the Russian central bank, Bloomberg reported.
- Albania will close its airspace to all Russian aircraft, with the exception of humanitarian and emergency flights, on Sunday night, said Albania’s Foreign Minister Olta Xhackai in a video address.
- Bulgaria will send humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine.
- Germany advised its citizens against traveling to Russia, according to the country’s foreign ministry.
It is”very probable” that even typically neutral Switzerland would sanction Russia and freeze Russian assets, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis said Sunday, according to NBC.
France will submit a resolution Monday to the United Nations Security Council calling for “unhindered humanitarian access” in Ukraine, according to CNN.
The new measures come as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his country’s nuclear-attack system to be placed on high alert — a startling move that increases the chances the conflict could turn into a nuclear one.
Still, Ukrainian and Russian officials will soon meet for peace talks “without preconditions” near Ukraine’s border with Belarus, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced. Zelensky admitted Sunday that he doubted peace talks with Russia would be fruitful but was willing to try “however small” the chance.“
Let them try, so that no citizen of Ukraine doubts that I, as president, tried to stop the war when there was still a chance, however small,” he said in his latest video, according to a translation by Kyiv Independent.
With Post Wires
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