1.

Reiterates its condemnation in the strongest terms of Russia’s unprovoked, illegal and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine and of the involvement of the Lukashenka regime in Belarus; reiterates its call on Russia to immediately terminate all military activities in Ukraine and to unconditionally withdraw all forces and military equipment from the entire internationally recognised territory of Ukraine, to end its forced deportations of Ukrainian civilians and to release all detained and deported Ukrainians, particularly children;

2.

Underlines that the objective of EU sanctions in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is to strategically weaken the Russian economic and industrial base, in particular the military-industrial complex, in order to undermine the ability of the Russian Federation to continue waging the war, attacking the civilian population and violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine, as well as to hamper Russia’s access to military technologies and components and to target Russian political and economic elites to undermine their support for the regime;

3.

Recalls that the effectiveness of international sanctions depends on the firmness, cohesion, cooperation, honesty and respect for the commitments of the states that have adopted them; calls for the Member States to clearly identify sanctioned Russian foreign assets being held in their jurisdictions and to ensure that they are effectively removed from the reach of Russian entities; highlights the need for a more harmonised approach and greater transparency on the reporting of the location and the amount of the assets frozen;

4.

Underlines that, given that the EU sanctions on Russia are a foreign policy instrument aimed at ending an illegal war, circumventing such export restrictions on war-critical goods in certain grave cases could be considered and prosecuted as complicity in Russia’s war crimes;

5.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to reinforce and centralise, at EU level, the oversight of sanctions implementation and to develop a sanctions circumvention prevention and monitoring mechanism to limit Russia’s ability to circumvent sanctions; calls on the Member States’ authorities to cooperate more closely on investigations of sanctions violations and circumvention and to demonstrate the consequences of such violations by dynamically and vigorously preventing and/or prosecuting violations of EU sanctions; calls, in this regard, for the EU institutions to reach a swift agreement on an ambitious directive on the definition of criminal offences and penalties for the violation of Union restrictive measures; underlines that penalties should remain proportionate but also sufficiently high to have a deterrent effect; calls on the European Council to adopt a decision expanding the powers of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to include the crime of violation of Union restrictive measures, which would allow for greater harmonisation and consistent and uniform prosecution of such crimes throughout the EU;

6.

Expresses deep concern regarding ongoing trade in sanctioned war-critical goods between Member States and Russia; deplores the serious lack of compliance culture regarding the EU sanctions on Russia; condemns the practice in which sanctioned goods from the EU are sold to companies or individuals from non-EU countries and then shipped directly from the EU to Russia; calls for the EU and its Member States to set up systems through which information on transactions can be shared more effectively in order to improve the enforcement of sanctions related to military and dual-use goods; calls on the Member States’ authorities to provide the necessary information and assistance to companies in order to improve compliance with EU sanctions and to engage with the companies whose products are being exported to Russia in order to minimise the risk of unknowingly violating export controls; calls on the Member States to thoroughly investigate the compliance of companies with export restrictions on listed goods and to impose dissuasive penalties;

7.

Calls on the Member States to expand export controls to cover more categories of goods, to align export controls across jurisdictions and to enforce measures consistently to close loopholes; calls for the EU and its Member States to take particular measures to prevent advanced technology products that are being exported to non-EU countries from ending up in Russia, and to constantly monitor developments so as to identify how sanction circumvention schemes work and to adapt the sanctions regimes accordingly;

8.

Urges companies from EU and EU candidate and potential candidate countries to withdraw their operations from Russia and to exercise particular diligence when exporting goods that are prohibited from export to Russia; emphasises that EU companies and their subsidiaries that are found to be in violation of EU restrictive measures should be ineligible for funding, including for tenders and other forms of funding as part of the Ukraine Facility and other reconstruction programmes in Ukraine; considers that the companies using derogations from the application of the EU sanctions against Russia, and, as such, maintaining business activities with Russia, should not benefit from any EU funds, technical assistance or participation in EU-funded projects; considers that these companies should be automatically put on the Early Detection and Exclusion System and that their status on the Arachne risk scoring tool should be updated accordingly; believes that the same principle should apply, mutatis mutandis, to public procurement, whereby government departments or local authorities should not be allowed to purchase work, goods or services from companies derogating from EU sanctions under Council Regulation (EU) No 269/2014;

9.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to improve EU strategic communication on, and fight disinformation about, the EU sanctions against Russia; calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase efforts to inform the broader public about the EU’s restrictive measures against Russia, in particular their objective, and to make use in this regard of the experience of the EU Sanctions Envoy in convincing international partners, organisations and key industries of the need to prevent the circumvention of efforts aimed at cutting the revenues available for the continuation of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine;

10.

Urges all candidate and potential candidate countries for EU accession to strictly align with EU sanctions in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine as a sign of their preparedness for taking on the obligations of EU membership;

11.

Condemns the behaviour of the states, legal service providers, other entities and individuals that help Russia to avoid the effects of EU sanctions; recalls that the violation of the sanctions represents a crime at EU level, and has a severe impact on EU financial interests; calls for the Member States and the EU institutions, including the EU Sanctions Envoy, to intensify their work to limit the evasion and circumvention of the EU sanctions against Russia, which seriously undermine the effectiveness of EU sanctions and obstruct international efforts to end the war; stresses that the assets confiscated as a result of sanctions violations must be used for the compensation of the victims of the Russian aggression, as well as for infrastructure reconstruction and reforms, under the Ukraine Facility; calls for the EU and the Member States to reassess their relations with countries that do not make sufficient efforts to limit the evasion and circumvention of the EU sanctions on Russia, including the financial assistance provided to these countries and any preferential access to EU markets; is concerned about reports that Azerbaijan and other countries whitewash Russian gas; urges the EU and its Member States to employ all possible tools to convince the Government of Azerbaijan to cease colluding with the Russian regime;

12.

Calls for the EU institutions and the Member States to actively contribute towards maintaining unity on sanctions and therefore calls for the renewal periods for all sanctions regimes related to Russia’s actions against Ukraine of not less than 12 months to be systematically provided for and for further sanctions packages aimed at strategically limiting Russia’s ability to finance its war campaign to be adopted; supports the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in continuing to contribute to long-term unity and increased effectiveness by making ample use of his right to submit proposals;

13.

Calls on the Commission to review its interpretation of sanctions leading to the seizure and confiscation of items and vehicles for personal use only; stresses that such over compliance discredits the goal and instrument of sanctions;

14.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to strengthen and increase coordination on the enforcement of existing sanctions on Russian oil exports; calls for the EU and its Member States to fully close the EU market for Russian-origin fossil fuels; calls for harmonised testing of the origin of fossil fuels, LNG and refined fossil fuel imports to prevent the re-export of Russian energy to the EU;

15.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to work with the G7 to substantially lower the price cap on Russian oil and petroleum products, to impose a full ban on the import of Russian LNG and liquefied petroleum gas into the EU and on the import of fuel and other petroleum products from non-EU countries if those products were produced using Russian oil, and to prohibit the shipment of Russian oil and LNG exports through EU territory; calls for the EU to introduce price and volume caps on Russian and Belarusian fertiliser imports into the EU;

16.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to impose sanctions on all the major Russian oil companies, Gazprombank, their subsidiaries, and their boards and management; calls for the EU and its Member States to expand the sanctions against Russia on aluminium imports and to introduce sanctions against the Arctic-2 LNG project; invites the EU and the Member States to propose a restriction on tanker services and an embargo on the sale of tankers to Russia, as well as a restriction on European insurance services for tankers if these are used to export Russian oil; calls on the Price Cap Coalition countries to prohibit the transhipment of Russian oil and LNG through their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones; calls for the EU and the Member States to strengthen oil price cap enforcement and price cap compliance, in particular, by requiring that price attestations for Russian oil cargoes can only be issued by a whitelist of approved traders and by requiring all tankers transiting European territorial waters to verify they hold adequate oil spill (‘P&I’) insurance;

17.

Calls on the Commission and the Member States to expand the sanctions to include a full ban on the marketing and cutting of diamonds of Russian origin or re-exported by Russia in the EU; calls for the EU and its Member States to sanction the state-owned company Alrosa and to broadly introduce systems to track the origin of diamonds based on new technologies;

18.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to limit, as soon as possible, their cooperation with Rosatom, as well as its leadership and subsidiaries, to what is strictly necessary for the EU’s energy security; calls on the Commission and the Euratom Supply Agency to screen existing cooperation with Rosatom and to provide support for substituting Russian fuel, spare parts and services with possible alternatives, taking into account the successful experience of Ukraine; calls for the EU and its Member States to prevent the vessels of Rosatom’s subsidiary Atomflot from entering EU ports and to reinforce international pressure to end the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and more broadly ensure the safety of conflict-affected nuclear power plants; calls for the EU and its Member States to ban the import of Russian nuclear products;

19.

Is concerned that Russia is able to obtain a significant number of the computer components required to produce ballistic and cruise missiles by using its space programme (Roscosmos) as a means of acquiring technologies with both civilian and military applications; calls for the EU and its Member States to immediately cease deliveries of such components to Russia and to adopt additional measures that would further disrupt Russia’s military supply chain and target external actors seeking to support Russia’s war effort, including through the production of drones and missiles;

20.

Calls for the EU and its Member States to find legal avenues allowing for the confiscation of frozen Russian assets and for their use for the reconstruction of Ukraine and compensation for the victims of Russia’s aggression; welcomes the announcement by the Belgian Government on the taxing of the proceeds obtained from the immobilised Russian-owned assets being held by Euroclear;

21.

Calls for the restrictive measures against Belarus to be fully aligned with those currently in place against Russia, as the Lukashenka regime is gravely complicit in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine;

22.

Calls on the European External Action Service, together with the Commission, to undertake a comprehensive review of the EU sanctions in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and to submit proposals on how to further improve the preparation, maintenance, monitoring of implementation and enforcement of EU sanctions, and their coordination with transatlantic allies, G7 and G20 partners, other like-minded partners and UN members in general; reiterates its position on maintaining robust transatlantic cooperation between the EU and the US on sanctions, closing any loopholes that could enable Russia to evade sanctions and streamlining export controls;

23.

Calls on the Council to accelerate its work towards reaching an agreement for the swift adoption of the proposed regulation on restrictive measures against serious acts of corruption; calls on the Council to rapidly impose sanctions under this new regime on natural and legal persons responsible for acts of corruption in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and that aim to support the Russian regime;

24.

Calls on the Council and the Commission to increase their transparency and professionalism regarding the way in which they identify persons that should be targeted or released from personal sanctions; reiterates that the current modus operandi is harming the reputation of the existing sanctions regime;

25.

Highlights that the limited effectiveness of sanctions underlines the need for a more comprehensive approach towards Russia; calls, therefore, for EU sanctions in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine to be embedded in a comprehensive political and diplomatic strategy towards Russia that also includes support to Russia’s exiled opposition, civil society and independent media and journalists opposed to the war, coordination with international partners on countering Russia’s interference in democratic processes and international conflicts, and effective multilateral cooperation to offset Russia’s obstruction or abuse of multilateral institutions or mechanisms; calls on the Commission and the Member States to minimise negative consequences for Russian and Belarusian civil society and opposition representatives in exile, as those consequences do not contribute towards reaching the stated objective of the sanctions, namely limiting Russia’s ability to wage its war of aggression against Ukraine;

26.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the President, Government and Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Russian and Belarusian authorities.