European Union Unveils Fresh Sanctions on Russia, Including a Nord Stream Ban
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced a proposal meant to ramp up pressure on Moscow.
Listen to this article · 4:11 min Learn more
The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Lubmin, Germany, in 2022.Credit...Laetitia Vancon for The New York Times
By Jeanna Smialek
Reporting from the Baltic Sea and Gdansk, Poland.
June 10, 2025 Updated 2:24 p.m. ET
The European Union’s executive arm unveiled its latest package of sanctions against Russia, aiming to apply pressure to President Vladimir V. Putin by damaging the nation’s energy and banking sectors.
The sanctions proposed on Tuesday — which still need to be debated and passed by member states — would ban transactions with the Nord Stream pipelines, hoping to choke off future flows of energy from Russia into Europe.
They would lower the price cap at which Russian gas can be purchased on global markets, hoping to chip away at Russian revenues.
And they would hit both Russian banks and the so-called “shadow fleet,” old tanker ships, often registered to other countries or not registered at all, that Moscow uses to covertly transport and sell its oil around the world to skirt energy sanctions. The new measures would blacklist a new batch of ships that are being used in this way.
The proposal is the 18th sanctions package to come out of Brussels since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Taken as a whole, the measures are a sweeping effort to threaten Russian economic might and morale at a critical juncture in the war.
Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Russia and Ukraine? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.
The announcement comes as peace talks between Russia and Ukraine stall. Despite pressure from the Trump administration to work toward a cease-fire, the latest round of talks between the two sides, earlier this month in Istanbul, created little result outside of another agreement to swap prisoners.
“We want peace for Ukraine,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, said during a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday. “Therefore we are ramping up pressure on Russia, because strength is the only language that Russia will understand.”
The European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, at a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday, said “We want peace for Ukraine.”Credit...Nicolas Tucat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Ms. von der Leyen said the war must end with a “real cease-fire” and a “serious proposal” from Russia.
The new measures would drop the price cap on Russian oil to $45 from $60 per barrel. Oil prices have declined since the cap was first adopted in 2023, so the point would be to restore how much the limit squeezes Russian revenues.
Because the oil price cap is a Group of 7 measure, the suggestion of dropping the cap will be discussed at next week’s G7 meeting in Canada, Ms. von der Leyen said.
Ms. von der Leyen suggested on Tuesday that she was hopeful the G7 would support such a measure, and that the United States and European Union are “very much aligned” in wanting to bring Russia to the negotiating table.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, has been pushing for more action against Russia and working on an expansive sanctions package — though it is not clear yet whether President Trump will support it.
Questions often surface about whether sanctions are working. Russia’s economy contracted sharply in 2022, but then rebounded. One reason is heavy military spending. Another is that Russia has turned to new markets, including China.
But European officials insist that the policies are working — and that intensifying them will intensify the effect.
“Every sanction weakens Russia’s ability to fight,” Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s top diplomat, said on Tuesday. She said recent efforts to tackle Russia’s shadow fleet, in particular, are beginning to pay off.
The European Union has already sanctioned more than 300 ships that were being used to circumvent sanctions. The fresh package of sanctions would list an additional 77 vessels that are part of the Russian shadow fleet, Ms. von der Leyen said.
That’s because officials have been scrambling to keep up with the expanding fleet.
“To some extent, it’s a mouse and a cat chase,” said Ignacy Niemczycki, deputy E.U. affairs minister for Poland, speaking in an interview on Tuesday during a press tour on the Baltic Sea, where the shadow fleet is especially active. “We’re adding more vessels to the list, and they are adding more vessels.”
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
See more on: Russia-Ukraine War, European Commission, European Union, Nord Stream AG, Vladimir Putin, Ursula von der Leyen
Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine- E.U. Sanctions: The European Union’s executive arm unveiled its latest package of sanctions against Russia, aiming to apply pressure to President Vladimir Putin by damaging the nation’s energy and banking sectors.
- U.S. Teacher Found: After months without contact, Stephen James Hubbard, a retired American teacher taken from his eastern Ukrainian home by Russian soldiers shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022, has been located in a Russian prison in Mordovia.
- Fighting Off Drones: On a “hot night,” when Russia tries to overwhelm Kyiv’s air defenses, Ukraine relies not only on Patriot missiles, but on civilians wielding searchlights and vintage guns.
- Secret Russian Intelligence Document: ??Russia’s domestic security agency says that China is spying on the Russian military’s operations in Ukraine to learn about Western weapons and warfare. A secret document shows that Russia’s spy hunters increasingly fear China’s espionage as the countries grow closer. Here’s how we obtained and vetted it.
- Trump’s Analogy: As Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, sat beside him watching in silence, President Trump compared Russia and Ukraine to two fighting children who needed to work out their differences for a while before anyone could intervene.
- Flipping the Script: A drone attack on airfields and warplanes in Russia revealed how Ukraine is changing how wars will be waged in the 21st century, U.S. officials and military analysts said. A Times analysis of videos and satellite images shows the extent of the attack, which appeared intended to demonstrate that continuing the war carries big risks for Moscow.
How We Verify Our Reporting
nytimes.com |
