BRUSSELS, March 12. /TASS/. The European Commission plans to take a fourth package of sanctions on Russia on Saturday, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on Friday.
"Tomorrow, we will take a fourth package of measures to further isolate Russia and drain" its resources," she said.
The EU and its partners in the G7 plan to ramp up the economic pressure against Russia in an effort to make it stop a military operation in Ukraine, according to the statement. The European Commission president reiterated statements by Ukraine that Russia allegedly violates agreements on the opening of humanitarian corridors for evacuation of civilians and strikes civilian buildings.
The European Commission is considering such measures as suspension of Russia’s membership in the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and denying Russia the status of most-favored-nation in the EU markets.
In other measures, the EU plans to prohibit the import of key goods in the iron and steel sector from the Russia, restrict investment in the Russian energy sector, ban the export of any EU luxury goods from member countries and use of crypto assets by Russians.
On February 24 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aims to demilitarize and denazify the country. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure, therefore there are no threats to the civilian population.
Afterward, the US, EU, UK and some other countries said they would impose sanctions on Russian individuals and legal entities.