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EU to go ahead with Ukraine sanctions despite peace deal: sources

12 February 2015, 22:42 CET
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(BRUSSELS) - The European Union will go ahead with fresh sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian individuals despite the signing of a peace deal in Minsk earlier Thursday, EU sources said.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers had agreed to suspend implementation for a week to boost the chances of success at a crunch Ukraine peace summit Wednesday in the Belarus capital.

The sanctions were in response to deadly fighting in the eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in January.

"The sanctions list will be published on Monday," one diplomatic source said on the sidelines of an EU leaders' summit where the latest peace accord dominated discussions.

The source said the sanctions, hitting 19 individuals and nine entities with asset freezes and visa bans, were meant to punish those involved in the attacks on Mariupol last month which killed more than 30 civilians.

That remained the intention regardless of the peace deal, and so the names would be published Monday in the EU's Official Journal, a procedure which brings the sanctions officially into effect.

Brussels first imposed targeted sanctions on individuals after Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 but adopted tougher economic measures after the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine in July.

Marathon talks that ran into Thursday morning in Minsk saw Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and his Ukraine counterpart Petro Poroshenko agree a new ceasefire to halt the bloody conflict.


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