EU still insists Moscow will yield under pressure of imposed sanctions

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EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wrote in an article for the EEAS website, on July 16, that sanctions against Russia are "effective" and that Moscow will eventually yield to the pressures exerted on its economic health. He said that the EU needs "strategic patience until Russia stops its aggression and Ukraine can recover its sovereignty in full. "

EU is on the way to finalizing the seventh package

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, six packages of sanctions have been issued on Russia. The seventh package, the “maintenance and alignment” package, has been proposed on July 15 and is in the process of being finalized "to clarify a number of provisions to strengthen legal certainty for operators and align the EU's sanctions with those of our allies and partners of the G7."

The latest sanctions include cutting the amount of oil it buys from Russia by 90% by the end of the year, despite that Italy and Germany - the largest economy in the EU - expressed concerns over a cut in Russian supplies of oil. It has also pulled out major Russian banks from the SWIFT system, namely Sberbank, Credit Bank of Moscow, and Russian Agriculture Bank.

The sanctions proposed in the seventh package are to place a ban on the exportation of Russian gold. They also include proposals to close some loopholes in previous packages and to add a reference to the recently published European Commission clarification of sanctioned goods’ transit to Kaliningrad in Russia.

Read more: EU, Russia reach an agreement, remove Kaliningrad restrictions

In his article, Borrell concluded that "Since we do not want to go to war with Russia, economic sanctions and support for Ukraine are the basis of this response. And our sanctions are starting to have an effect, and it will be even greater in the coming months."

In recent months, Russia has adopted several new strategies to counter punitive measures. Not only has it developed its new SWIFT system, but it has also relocated its oil and goods trade to BRICS members as well as some OPEC members, in order to rebalance its markets amid sanctions imposed by the West.