BRUSSELS, July 12. /TASS/. The European Union has once again extended economic sectoral sanctions against Russia for six more months, the EU Council said in a statement on Monday.
"The EU Council today decided to extend sanctions aimed at specific sectors of the Russian economy for another six months until January 31, 2022," according to the statement.
This decision of the EU Council was made on the basis of an assessment of the implementation of the Minsk agreements at a meeting of the European Council on June 24-25. "The EU Council recalled that these sanctions "were introduced in 2014 in response to actions destabilizing the situation in eastern Ukraine." As a European diplomatic source told TASS earlier, the foreign ministers intended to make a decision to extend the sanctions without discussion.
In 2014, the EU imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation in connection with the events in Ukraine and the reunification of Crimea with Russia. The restrictive measures have been expanded and extended several times.
Negotiations on a visa-free regime and a new basic agreement on cooperation were suspended, a ban was introduced on entry to the community countries for officials from the Russian Federation, and their assets were frozen. Trade, financial and military restrictions were also announced. In response, Russia imposed a ban on imports from the European Union of a number of food products.