Sanctions against Russia must be destructive enough to stop this heinous war - Andriy Yermak

Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak held a regular online meeting of a group of Ukrainian and international experts established under the auspices of the Office of the President to analyze the real impact of sanctions against Russia, provide proposals for strengthening existing and implementing new effective measures.

Andriy Yermak expressed confidence that the recommendations and advice of these

experts will help build a system of sanctions in the near future that could help stop the heinous war waged by Russia against Ukraine.

"The war continues. Everyone saw the horrors that took place in the city of Bucha. And that means sanctions are not enough to stop Russia. Therefore, all of us and our partners need to work to ensure that sanctions are sufficiently destructive," said the Head of the President's Office.

Former US Ambassador to Russia and former US National Security Adviser Michael McFaul, co-ordinator of the international expert group, suggested focusing on sanctions on oil and natural gas, which is known to be the lion's share of Russia's exports.

"We must focus our efforts on sanctions against Russia's oil and gas exports. The money of European consumers should not go to the state budget of Russia in order to further finance Putin's terrible machine of destruction in Ukraine," said Michael McFaul.

Rostyslav Shurma, Deputy Head of the President's Office, added that work should also be done to recognize the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism and to include it into the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to restrict trade with Russia.

He also noted that it is necessary to disconnect from SWIFT the entire banking system, including Sberbank and Gazprombank, ban land transport, including rail, prohibit ships from entering Russian-controlled territory, Russian ports, and ban transport that belongs to the Russians or carries out the transportation of goods of Russian owners from entering international ports.

Andriy Yermak also added that it is necessary to impose an embargo on the supply to Russia of any technology, equipment, minerals and ores, rare earth dual-use minerals and thus stop the production of weapons in Russia.

In addition, it is necessary to expand the list of sanctions against politically significant persons of the Russian Federation and members of their families.

According to Andriy Yermak, secondary sanctions are very important, i.e. inclusion in the sanctions list of legal entities and individuals of other countries that help the persons of the Russian Federation subject to sanctions to avoid restrictions.