MOSCOW, September 10. /TASS/. The European Union keeps on extending anti-Russian sanctions over the alleged violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity while opting to overlook Ukraine ignoring the Minsk agreements, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the international committee of Russia’s State Duma (lower parliament house), said on Friday, commenting on the European Council’s decision to extend the anti-Russian restrictions.
He noted that it was done automatically, whereas "there are topics for discussions". "For instance, one of them might be a statement by Alexei Arestovich, an adviser to the presidential office chief, who has said recently that Ukraine ‘has got off the hook’ of the Minsk agreements. The agreements that are geared to preserve the country’s integrity and stop the conflict in Donbass," he wrote on his Telegram channel.
"Brussels should better drop its double standards and look at its wards in Kiev. Otherwise the situation looks absolutely absurd: sanctions for the non-implementation of the Minsk-2 package continue to be extended against Russia while Ukraine 'gets off the hook’ and declares so absolutely openly," he noted.
The Council of Europe has extended, for the 15th time, personal EU sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian nationals over the so-called violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. A source told TASS earlier that the sanctions were prolonged by a written procedure without discussing the issue on its merits.
The sanctions list includes more than 170 Russian and Ukrainian individuals, including senior officials of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics, and 48 legal entities, first of all those related to these republics’ government and law enforcement bodies. All those under sanctions are prohibited from entering the European Union and accessing the EU's banking system. European businesses are banned from contacting the blacklisted persons and organizations.