BRUSSELS, October 11./TASS/. The European Union has expanded its blacklist over Crimea’s reunification with Russia, adding eight individuals, including the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Crimea and Sevastopol, Leonid Mikhailiuk, the Official Journal of the European Union said on Monday.

"The Council considers that eight individuals should be added to the list of persons, entities and bodies subject to restrictive measures," it said.

Several judges, prosecutors and security officers "responsible for enforcing Russian law" in Crimea that Brussels refuses to recognize as part of Russia, were added to the list. Apart from Mikhailiuk, the list includes Vladimir Terentiev, Head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, Crimean judges Viktor Mozhelianskiy, Galina Redko, Mikhail Belousov and Andrey Dolgopolov, investigator Magomed Magomedov and prosecutor Yevgeniy Kolpikov.

Thus, according to the document, there are 185 individuals on the blacklist. Restrictive measures include, in particular, travel bans and asset freezes.

This block of individual sanctions is part of the three packages of sanctions that the EU imposed against Russia in 2014, along with sectoral economic sanctions that were prolonged in July until January 31, 2022, and sanctions against citizens and companies of Crimea that will remain in effect until late June, being extended once a year.

As the condition for lifting individual and economic sanctions, the EU cites full compliance with the Minsk agreements, ignoring the fact that Ukraine fully sabotages them. The EU is not planning to abolish sanctions over Crimea as long as the peninsula remains part of Russia.

After the Western-backed coup of February 2014 in Ukraine, Crimea and Sevastopol held a referendum, in which 96.7% of all Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification deal on March 18, 2014, which the Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament) ratified on March 21, 2014. Despite the convincing results of the referendum, Kiev refused to recognize Crimea as part of Russia.