The EU Commission on Monday sanctioned more than 1,500 individuals and entities it said were supporting Russia’s ballistic-missile production or broader military-industrial complex, powering the EU’s largest-ever set of listings in a single day.
The additions, which also targeted 77 individuals for participating in illegally staged Russian elections in occupied Ukrainian territories, pushed the EU’s total registry of sanctioned Russian actors past 4,500 entries.
The listings land both as Russia ramps up deadly missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and as EU leaders warn about Moscow’s intensifying hybrid operations campaign, including repeated violations of member states’ airspace by Russian drones.
“Europe is again showing a united front,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas wrote on X. “We are making it significantly harder, slower and more expensive for Russia to produce the weapons it uses to kill Ukrainians.”
The details: Monday’s designations zeroed in on what the EU called “mid-level suppliers” of key components in Russian weapons systems, including missiles, drones, and other aircraft.
The list, it said, includes producers of:
electronics such as computers, microcircuits, and semiconductors;communication equipment, including antennas, radars, and transceivers; aviation, missile, navigation, and satellite systems; and ammunition and explosives.
The rollout appears to be separate from a wider-reaching 22nd sanctions package the EU had planned to pass before the end of the year, which is likely to include additional sectoral and policy measures.
Among those sanctioned: Moscow-based Milandr EK OOO, which supplies electronics — including microchips and foreign components — as a sales office of JSC PKK Milandr. The U.S. had sanctioned the latter and added Milandr EK to its export-restricting Entity List in December 2022, citing their respective contributions to the Russian military-industrial base.
A review of trade data shortly after those U.S. measures, The Brief reported, found that the affiliated Milandr firms had imported millions of dollars’ worth of semiconductors and microelectronic components from entities in Switzerland and Hong Kong.
U.K.’s energy sanctions in tandem
The EU’s measures followed U.K. sanctions last week that had targeted Russian energy, reinforcing a cross-European strategy to strangle both Moscow’s front-line supply chains and the revenue engines behind them.
The U.K. had designated hit key oil producers, bringing over 90% of Russia’s total crude-production capacity under British sanctions. London also targeted 38 additional entities, including financial payment channels and 12 more crude tankers in Russia’s “shadow fleet.”
Outside of the ‘united front’: The United States, which last week authorized the purchase of Russian diesel in a bid to combat high prices before the midterm elections.
The listings also notably follow France’s controversial lobbying last month for the EU to delist two prominent Russian businessmen, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman, reportedly as part of a prisoner exchange deal.
Peter Maroulis contributed research to this report
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