The list of sanctions was adopted by EU member states on Wednesday. The measures are expected to be published and come into force shortly,according to officials familiar with the process.
The bloc included state television presenter Vladimir Soloviev,Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and the head of Kremlin-backed media outletRT,Margarita Simonyan,on its list,according to the officials. The EU also sanctioned Denis Bortnikov,deputy president of state-owned VTB Bank PJSC,a day after the US penalised him.
His father is Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov,a key figure in Putin’s inner circle,who was first sanctioned by the US in March last year and redesignated by the Treasury on Tuesday.
VTB’s Chief Executive Officer Andrey Kostin and Igor Shuvalov,who heads state-run development bank VEB.RF,were sanctioned by Brussels as well,along with Yevgeny Prigozhin,a tycoon known as “Putin’s chef” for his Kremlin catering contracts who is under US sanctions for alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.
Members of Prigozhin’s family were also sanctioned,the officials said.
The West had warned Putin of swift and severe economic measures if he invaded Ukraine,but the limited actions taken so far by the EU,the US and the UK have fallen well short of that benchmark.