Lithuanian president believes Russia is not suffering enough from sanctions

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda believes that the European Union needs to have a clearer policy towards Russia, which unleashed the war against Ukraine, especially in terms of sanctions. Source: LRT with reference to Nauseda at the Vilnius Foreign and Security Policy Conference, as reported by European Pravda Details: Nauseda believes that the EU needs to have a clearer policy towards Russia, which unleashed the war against Ukraine.

However, he noted that this would be impossible without the West's principled approach to economic relations with the aggressor country.

"I really don't like this political navigation when, on the one hand, we impose sanctions, but on the other hand, we are making more and more exceptions to this sanctions policy ourselves," he stressed. Nauseda said that sanctions circumvention was becoming increasingly important for the interests of Western companies. "I constantly see that this seemingly value-based policy, the sanctions policy, has very specific interests of Western companies.

As long as business has such a huge influence on politics, the EU will not have a foreign policy with values and principles," Nauseda pointed out.

Nauseda emphasised that he does not currently have the impression that "Russia is suffering because of its policy, as was believed and expected at the beginning of the [full-scale - ed.] war, when we said that sanctions would stop Russia". "I see that over time, the tension of sanctions is getting weaker and weaker, and the exceptions and circumvention of sanctions are getting stronger and stronger," he added. Background:

• It should be noted that two EU countries - Latvia and Lithuania - refused to support the draft 15th EU sanctions package at a meeting of permanent representatives in Brussels on Friday, 6 December.
• This was due to the fact that the proposed sanctions package extended the provision allowing Western companies to continue operating in Russia despite the current sanctions.
• The proposals prepared by the European Commission for member states include the addition of 29 legal entities and 54 individuals to the sanctions list.

  It is expected that for the first time, companies from China will be included in the list in response to information about their support for military production in Russia.

• New measures to combat Russia's shadow fleet, which circumvents the price cap for oil transported by sea, are also being considered: 48 tankers will be blacklisted.

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