Lower thirds:

00:02 Report by Christine Mhundwa
00:59 Svitlana Romanko | Ukrainian campaign group Razom We Stand
01:41 Christine Mhundwa | DW Correspondent
02:08 Ursula von der Leyen | European Commission President
02:32 Svitlana Romanko | Razom We Stand Founder & Director

Script:

Punishing Russia for its war on Ukraine: travel bans and asset freezes - covering more than two thousand Russian invidivuals. including Vladimir Putin, other officials, Roman Abramovich and other oligarchs. 

EU countries have tried to wean themselves from Russia's oil and gas.

Two-hundred billion euros belonging to the Russian central bank has been seized  - most of it is sitting in a financial clearing house in the Belgian capital Brussels.

Dozens of Russian banks have been blocked from the SWIFT international payment system,

And Russian carriers of all kinds are banned from EU airspace and aiports. Russia's entire merchant fleet of nearly three-thousand vessels is banned from EU ports.

Russian media outlets can no longer broadcast in the EU,

and European companies are not allowed to sell any of their technology, electronics and even luxury goods in Russia. 

Of all these sanctions - the targeted measures on the energy sector seem to be hurting Russia most.

01:04
+++SOT (English) Dr Svitlana Romanko, Director of 'Razom We Stand' ++++
"Energy sales have made most of Russia's war budget profit, we started assessing it at 60 percent of the overall Russian budget coming from oil and gas.The sanction effect was huge on the Russian economy, they almost exhausted their sovereign fund from where they fund the war and now they have increased taxation for their oil and gas companies because they don't have money in the budget to pay for the war expense "

It was hoped the West's unprecedented sanctions would result in Russia's economy eventually collapsing.

But Russia has been able to withstand the pressure, even undermining some of the measures.

01:45
+++PTC Christine Mhundwa, DW Correspondent+++
"Russia has been deploying various tactics to circumvent the sanctions - using third countries to get around certain measures,  falsifying the true origin of goods it trades,  the Russians have even developed something of an alternative to the SWIFT payment system. As the EU has piled on the restrictions the focus of the measures has increasingly focused on tightening the screws to address the circumvention "

New sanctions are in the pipeline.

((CUT: At a recent meeting of EU leaders in Tirana, Albania the EU chief touted what would be the 18th package of measures:))

02:14
+++SOT (English) Urusula Von Der Leyen, EU Commission Chief+++
"This package will include for instance sanctions on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. It will include working on listing more vessels of the Russian shadow fleet and also lowering the oil price cap, and also more sanctions on the financial sector in Russia."

02:42
+++SOT (English) Dr Svitlana Romanko, Director of 'Razom We Stand'++++
"It's not going far enough, there are over 800 shadow fleet vessels for the oil only and about 80 for LNG gas that have to be sanctioned, I highly doubt they will all be included ((CUT: into the 18th sanctions package)).There must be a gas ban in this sanctions package because banning or just freezing Nord Stream 1 and 2 - they were not functioning overall and they were not the main route for Russian gas going into Europe ((CUT: since 2021 so that's good that they are doing this but they must expand the LNG ban and lower the oil price cap only when this will be done we can consider the 18th package really demolishing Russia's war economy which is highly based on fossil fuel profits.))."

But deflating Russia's war economy will require more than rhetoric.

In 2024 - the EU spent about 22 billion euros buying Russian gas. 

More than the 19 billion euros in financial support that the EU gave Ukraine.