Pecohub The European Council has announced new sanctions targeting 16 Russian individuals and seven entities “responsible for the systematic unlawful deportation, forced transfer, forced assimilation, including indoctrination and militarized education, of Ukrainian minors.”
It said they were also involved in “their unlawful adoption and removal to the Russian Federation and within temporarily occupied territories,” in reference to the areas internationally recognized as part of Ukraine under Russian control.
According to the Council, Russia is estimated to have deported and forcibly transported nearly 20,500 Ukrainian children.
“These actions constitute grave breaches of international law and a violation of the fundamental rights of the child and aim to erase Ukrainian identity and undermine the preservation of its future generations,” the European Council said.
This topic of child abduction also underpins the longstanding International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The EU listed several entities tied to the Russian Ministry of Education and individuals, including some working in occupied Ukrainian regions.
It said those listed were subject to asset freezes — and travel bans in the case of individuals — and that EU citizens and companies were forbidden from doing business with or providing funds to them.
The European Council is the arm of the EU that brings together all 27 heads of state or government of the member states. It needs to sign off on major foreign policy issues like bloc-wide sanctions.
European governments on Monday rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder could represent them in potential future talks with Moscow on the war in Ukraine and European security.
Putin said on Saturday, amid Moscow’s celebrations of the 81st anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II in Europe, that he believed the war in Ukraine was coming to an end.
European leaders said it was clear why Putin had floated Schröder, who took high-paying corporate jobs with Russian energy companies after his 1998-2005 tenure as chancellor, as his preferred negotiating partner.
“It’s clear why Putin wants him to be the person — so that actually … he would be sitting on both sides of the table,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels. “If we give the right to Russia to appoint a negotiator on our behalf … that would not be very wise.”
Germany’s Europe Minister Gunther Krichbaum said Schröder was unsuited to the role, reinforcing similar comments hurriedly shared with the media by sources from government offices in Berlin on Sunday.
“He is, and certainly has been, heavily influenced by Mr. Putin,” Krichbaum said. “Close relationships may be legitimate anywhere in the world, but they do not help one to be perceived as an impartial mediator.”
