EU Ambassadors Agree To Extend Crimea Sanctions For Another Year

BRUSSELS -- European Union ambassadors have agreed to extend the bloc's investment ban on the Crimean Peninsula by another year.

Sources familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, told RFE/RL on June 12 that the sanctions will officially be prolonged at ministerial level within the next two weeks.

The EU sanctions were introduced in 2014 as a response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea region in March 2014.

The measures include an EU-wide ban on imports from Crimea unless they have Ukrainian certificates, a ban on cruise ships flying the flag of an EU member state or controlled by a member state to call at ports in Crimea, and a prohibition of the purchase by EU companies of property and companies there.

Under the ban, goods and technology for the transport, telecommunications, and energy sectors also cannot be exported to Crimean companies or for use on the peninsula.

Moscow is also supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014.

EU leaders are expected to prolong the bloc's economic sanctions against Russia, which mainly target the country's energy and banking sectors, by six months when they meet in Brussels on June 20.