Have you missed the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 minutes takes stock for you every night. Here is the essentials of this Friday, July 18, 1.241th day of the conflict.
The fact of the day
The European Union adopted this 18th package of sanctions against Russia on Friday. “The European Union has just adopted one of the most severe sanctions packets against Russia to date,” said the head of European diplomacy Kaja Kallas.
A decision also welcomed by France. “With the United States, we will force Vladimir Putin to a ceasefire” in Ukraine, against which Russia launched a large-scale invasion in 2022, wrote on X Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
The new sanctions risked by the EU against Russia provide, among other things, a lowering of the price of the Russian crude oil price, now set at just over $ 45 per barrel, 15 % less than the average Russian barrel price on the market. The threshold has so far been set at 60 dollars per barrel, a price deemed too high, given the current level of oil prices on the market.
The Declaration of the Day
« It will of course have to analyze the new package [de sanctions] in order to minimize the consequences. But, in addition to that, each new package adds a negative effect for the countries that join for it. »
The Kremlin, via its spokesperson for Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov, said on Friday that it would make sure to “minimize” the consequences of European sanctions just announced, promising that these would have “negative effects” for the countries which imposed them and judge that it was a “double-cutting weapon”. “We have said on several occasions that we consider these unilateral restrictions as illegal and that we oppose it,” he recalled during his daily briefing in which AFP participated.
The figure of the day
105. As part of this 18th train of sanctions, the 27 added 105 “ghosts” tankers to their black list of ships which now has 444 ships, the European Commission said in a statement.
The EU also added 22 entities, including 11 non -Russian, targeting companies operating “ghosts” or helping the Russians to bypass the sanctions. “For the first time”, the EU has targeted an oil refinery belonging to the Russian group Rosneft in India, welcomed Kaja Kallas.