EU is running low on potential Russians to sanction - reports
Sources claim that the EU possibly won't place restrictions on media workers as part of their sanction campaigns carried out frequently against Russians.
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Sanction packages keep stacking up by the EU (Reuters)
The EUobserver online newspaper reported on Friday, citing sources, that the EU is running out of options in finding more Russians to implement sanctions on since all the big shots or the highly important figures have already been targeted.
According to one of the sources' statements to the newspaper, they said: "There are no big fish left, we've already got the full collection of oligarchs and everybody in the political and defense establishments."
Just last week, the US Treasury Department announced that Washington imposed new sanctions on individuals and groups that have allegedly aided “Russia in its war in Ukraine", which targeted 22 individuals and two entities “who advanced Moscow's objectives in Ukraine both before and after the war in Ukraine".
It is also unlikely for the potential of imposing sanctions against media workers by European diplomats to take place because per the source, the EU "does not like to blacklist media people".
However, another source said that Russia lacks "unicorns" that the EU could potentially sanction, referring to the "unicorn" which is a start-up company that reached a value of $1 billion without being actually listed on the stock market.
So far, seven bundles of sanctions have been introduced against Russia by the EU since the start of the war in Ukraine, with the latest package banning Russian gold imports and jewelry., as the one before targeted Russian bank systems and oil. Restrictions applied to Russian government and military officials, business people, and an abundance of well-known media figures such as Sputnik and RT Editor-In-Chief Margarita Simonyan.