Ukraine will continue to insist on increasing European Union sanctions against Russia due to the situation in eastern Ukraine, and the illegal annexation of Crimea, says the Ukrainian Ambassador Kostiantyn Yeliseyev to the EU.
“My message is that the EU should change their ambitions,” Ambassador Kostiantyn Yeliseyev told reporters in Brussels. He said that Ukraine wants sanctions to be toughened due to the illegal annexation of Crimea.
“We insist that the EU bans the sale of its goods in Crimea,” said the Ambassador.
The Ambassador noted that there is already a ban in place on importing goods from Crimea. He went on to note that his proposal would be a symbolic step.
He also said that over the past six to seven months the EU issued almost 20 findings relating to the ongoing crisis, detailing the conditions for when sanctions may be lifted, in particular, emphasizing the need for the Russian military to withdraw from Ukraine, although none of these conditions have been met so far.
He said that each day the Russian military continues to enter Ukraine, and that not only information from Kyiv, but from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) confirms this. The Ambassador said that separatist training camps were created in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions with Russian support
