Lithuania calls on EU to seize Russian assets and tighten sanctions against Rosneft and shadow fleet

The country is proposing several legal mechanisms to launch this process and considers further delay unacceptable.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budris said that the EU should make a decision on confiscating frozen Russian assets and using them to help Ukraine as soon as possible, Ukrinform writes.

“We must break the deadlock and move forward. If we do not do this, the price for us will be much higher,” Budris stressed.

He also called for expanding the list of sanctions against Russian energy companies, including Lukoil, Rosneft, Gazprom and Novatek, as well as lowering the ceiling price for oil and oil products.

The minister paid special attention to nuclear energy, stating the need to ban new contracts with Rosatom, which create dependence for decades.

Among the maritime directions, he proposed expanding the list of sanctioned vessels of the Russian “shadow fleet”, which is used to circumvent restrictions on oil trade.

The Lithuanian minister also mentioned potential sanctions against Russian scientific institutions, access to cloud services and banks, which still remain outside European restrictions.

Also, on the eve, Germany and France advocated secondary sanctions against companies that support Russia.