Ukraine and six other countries join EU sanctions against Lukashenko's regime
Seven EU partner countries, including Ukraine, have joined European sanctions against high-ranking officials of the regime of the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, as reported on the website of the European Parliament.
Ukraine and other countries joined the EU sanctions of Octobers 2. The sanctions list includes 40 Belarusian officials, but not Lukashenko himself.
“The Candidate Countries the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania, and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine align themselves with this Council Decision, “the statement reads
The European Parliament believes that the above-mentioned countries will ensure “their national policies conform to this Council Decision”.
"The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it," the EP added.
The Baltic states were the first to impose sanctions against Belarusian officials.
On September 29, The UK and Canada imposed sanctions against Lukashenko, his son Viktor and several members of the Belarusian government.
On October 2, the European Union imposed sanctions against 40 Belarusian officials because of the brutal suppression of protests and the falsification of the presidential elections.
On the same day, the United States followed European Union with its own sanctions.
However, Lukashenko was not on the EU blacklist. This was explained by the fact that they decided not to punish him personally in order to resolve the crisis through dialogue.
But on October 12, EU foreign ministers agreed to impose sanctions on Lukashenko. On November 6, the European Union officially imposed sanctions against Lukashenko and 14 other Belarusians, including his eldest son Viktor.
Estonia has proposed to impose new sanctions against Belarus because of the death of Minsk resident Roman Bondarenko, who was beaten by the security forces.