The decision was made after reports by US intelligence services about Moscow’s preparations for a military operation, the European official said.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared this Saturday that the sanctions against Russia began to be conceived two months before Moscow launched the special military operation in Ukraine in February of last year.
The decision was made after reports by US intelligence services about Moscow’s preparations for an operation, Von der Leyen said at the Munich Security Conference. “My cabinet in the Commission began to work with the White House and the Treasury [de EE.UU.] in December, about possible sanctions in case Russia invaded Ukraine,” he said, adding that everyone hoped “that would never happen and that we would never have to resort” to such coercive measures.
The senior European official indicated that it was a “tedious task” since they had to “align” the very different European and American commercial systems, to develop sanctions “targeting advanced technologies and irreplaceable goods for Russia”, while “being fully in sync” with the G7 countries.
This made it possible for “on the second, four and tenth day” of the Russian operation “very strong sanctions packages” could be put on the table, he said. In this sense, she assured that she was “deeply convinced” that the “unity” and “determination” of Western countries with respect to the actions taken against Moscow and in favor of Kiev “will be maintained”, because “we are fighting for our values and for our very existence.”
In this regard, the spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zajarova, pointed out that Western countries “had prepared well, they had worked out the provocation in detailfanning the flames of the conflict.” “The EU planned to include me in the sanctions at the end of 2021, with the surprising formulation: ‘for facilitating the deployment of troops on the territory of Ukraine,'” he added.
Source: RT
