Fury as oligarchs get off lightly in the wake of EU’S ‘weak’ sanctions

Bloc will impose asset freezes and travel bans on just 27 people in retaliation for Ukraine aggression

THE European Union has been accused of overseeing the “weakest” Western sanctions after Russian oligarchs were dropped from the list of targets, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

The bloc will impose asset freezes and travel bans on 27 people, including Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff and his defence minister, as part of the first round of retaliation against Moscow for its latest aggression against Ukraine.

But The Telegraph understands at least seven European capitals were left furious with Josep Borrell, the EU’S foreign policy chief, for cutting an original list of at least 50 targets, which included oligarchs, almost in half. The EU’S package of measures mainly focuses on political figures linked to President Putin and not his billionaire confidants.

Instead of political figures, Britain targeted three Russian billionaires with ties to the Kremlin, which it believes will put financial pressure on Mr Putin.

“Member states are asking Borrell to get his sanctions game back on track,” an EU diplomat said. “Unlike the UK and US, the EU has been unable, and Borrell unwilling, to broaden their scope, particularly to hurt more oligarchs.”

Anton Vaino, President Putin’s top adviser, and Sergei Shoigu, his defence minister, are among the targets hit with restrictive measures agreed by EU member states. Prominent propagandists Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT, the state-funded English-language broadcaster, Vladimir Solovyov, an influential pro-government news anchor, and Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry’s spokesman, will also be hit.

But much to the anger of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, the sanctions on a number of Mr Putin’s inner circle did not go as far as the UK and US sanctions packages announced in the wake of Moscow recognising the independence of two breakaway states in eastern Ukraine.

In a private meeting of EU ambassadors yesterday, their envoys argued that Mr Borrell had opted for the “safest criteria to come up with the shortest list possible”, according to a source.

The row is set to continue tomorrow at an emergency summit of European leaders in Brussels called by Charles Michel, the European Council’s president, “to define our collective approach and actions”.

A spokesman for Mr Borrell said: “Our sanctions are progressive and we keep space to scale them up.”