The European Union has agreed to impose a new round of sanctions against Russia, targeting the country's energy and financial sectors in a bid to tighten the screws on the Kremlin's war machine and force a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine.
The sanctions, endorsed on Friday by ambassadors in Brussels, ban all transactions with 22 Russian banks, the Russian Direct Investment Fund and its subsidiaries, and the direct and indirect use of the underwater Nord Stream pipelines, which are currently closed off but which Moscow seeks to restart at some point in the future.
