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LUXEMBOURG — EU foreign ministers voted through almost 1,600 new restrictions targeting Russia's military-industrial complex on Oct. 12, the largest single addition to the sanctions lists ever.
The new listings target industry players ranging from shipyards and aviation companies to electronics manufacturers, armored vehicle repair facilities, and aerospace companies, and were first reported on by the Kyiv Independent on Sept. 21.
"This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war," chief EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said, adding that more than half of the listings "are connected to the production chain for ballistic missiles."
"We are making it significantly harder, slower, and more expensive for Russia to produce the weapons it uses to kill Ukrainians."
The new additions take the total number of Russia sanctions passed by the EU from around 3,000 to over 4,500.
The new listings appear to have been compiled using a rather general criterion, namely, their entitlement to subsidies from the Russian government and their designation by the Russian state as part of the military-industrial complex.
EU sanctions entail freezing assets owned by these entities but held within the bloc and banning transactions with sanctioned entities.
It is unclear whether any of these entities did business with EU countries or held assets in the EU.
However, a senior EU official told the Kyiv Independent that the impact of the sanctions on the newly targeted entities' ability to do business with third countries should not be underestimated.
Southeast Asian countries, in particular, the official said, are unwilling to risk hurting relations with the EU by doing business with companies sanctioned by the bloc.
Ultimately, the aim of the sanctions is to hamper and make more expensive the running of Russia's war machine. Anything that complicates its ability to source western components, the EU official explained, is surely a good thing.