The European Union (EU) considerably increased this Sunday the pressures on Russia for your invasion to Ukraineand authorized a package of 450 million euros (about 500 million dollars) for the purchase and delivery of armaments to the Ukrainian forces.
“It is the first time in the history (of the European Union) that we do this,” said the head of EU diplomacy, Joseph Borrellat the end of a meeting of European foreign ministers in Brussels.
The aid package would also include provisions for some 50 million euros for the purchase and delivery of fuel and medical equipments to Ukrainehe added.
During the press conference, Borrell even slipped that the EU will support bloc countries sending to Ukraine fighter planes.
“We are even going to send fighter planes. We are not just talking about ammunition. We are providing more important weapons for a war,” he said.
Borrell explained that the minister of foreign relations of ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, “had mentioned the need for planes that Ukrainians can fly.” “Certain members (of the EU) have those planes,” she said.
The head of EU diplomacy welcomed an offer presented by Poland to serve as a delivery platform for all that war material to Ukraine across the common border.
Blockade of the Russian Central Bank
In addition to making these funds available for the purchase of weapons, the European foreign ministers reached a political agreement to block the Russian Central Bank transactions.
With this measure “more than half of the reserves of the Russian Central Bank will be paralyzed, since they are kept in establishments in G7 countries,” the official told a press conference.
Borrell added that the EU decided to “close the air space to Russian aircraft. Not a single Russian aircraft will be able to land or take off from a runway on European territory.”
Indeed, this Sunday, several countries announced in sequence the closure of their airspace to Russian aircraft, but Borrell reinforced that it is a decision of the bloc as a whole.
In their video conference, the European foreign ministers also confirmed the exclusion of a group of Russian banks from the interbank system SWIFTan essential tool for financial operations on a global scale.
The Ukrainian government is maintaining pressure on the EU to proceed with the exclusion of the entire Russian financial system from the SWIFT network, but for now only a select group of banks will be affected.
The possibility of a total exclusion was discussed by European leaders on Thursday at an emergency meeting in Brussels, but it was not possible to reach a unanimous position.
Such a decision would be devastating for the russian financial systembut a gesture of that magnitude would be felt even in the european banking systemaccording to several countries of the bloc.
Borrell announced this Sunday that the foreign ministers also approved mechanisms to dismantle the activity of press organs controlled by the Russian state in European territory.
“We need to confront disinformation. We need to counter the narrative promoted by organs controlled by the Russian state, because that information (…) is turning into an open information war,” he said.
For this reason, he added, “we are going to ban RussiaToday (RT) and Sputnik transmit from the EU, because they are the champions of information manipulation”.