Factbox-What's in the EU's 20th package of sanctions against Russia

Factbox-What's in the EU's 20th package of sanctions against Russia?

By Julia Payne

BRUSSELS, April 22 (Reuters) - The EU adopted its 20th package of sanctions against Russia over Moscow's war in Ukraine on Thursday after Slovakia and Hungary dropped their opposition to the move following the resumption of flows through the Druzhba oil pipeline.   

The EU had initially aimed to adopt the package to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 

Key Elements of the EU's 20th Sanctions Package

Here are the key elements of the new measures set out in the EU's Official Journal and EU press releases:

Oil and Gas Restrictions

• EU countries established the legal basis for a future full ban on offering maritime services to buyers of Russian crude and refined products to replace the G7 price cap
• No decision will be made on the phase-in of the ban until after further coordination with the G7
• Ban on providing services - technical, financial or brokering - for Russia-flagged or Russian-managed icebreakers and LNG tankers starting from April 25, 2026
• Ban on providing services for foreign-owned icebreakers and LNG tankers operating in Russia starting from January 1, 2027
• Ban on providing LNG terminal services directly or indirectly to Russian entities that are more than 50% controlled by a Russian citizen or entity in Russia

Port Restrictions and Shadow Fleet

• Bans on transactions with the Indonesian oil port at Karimun and two Russian ports - Murmansk and Tuapse
• Adds 46 vessels to Russia's shadow fleet, taking the total to 632 vessels. Eleven ships were taken off the list.
• Ban on direct and indirect tanker sales to Russian entities. Any tanker sales must include a clause banning resales to Russian entities or for use in Russia

Asset Freeze Listings

• 120 individuals and entities were added to the sanctions list, subjecting them to a travel ban, a full transaction ban and the freezing of assets
• 56 designations related to Russia's military industrial complex including 17 in third countries - China, UAE, Belarus and Central Asia
• 36 listings relating to Russian energy and Russia's shadow fleet
• Two companies the EU says are linked to illegal Ukraine grain exports - Al Houda Holding and Levant Fleet
• Russia- and Belize-registered Moran Security Group, which the EU says provides ex-Russian military personnel to protect shadow fleet tankers
• Russia's First Deputy Minister of Culture and the Director of the State Hermitage Museum
• Two Russian nationals and two Uzbek companies for supplying cotton pulp to Russia, which is critical for gunpowder production
• Kazakhstan's United Trading Group and two people working for German chemical firm UrSeCo Handels that the EU says supply hydrogen chloride to Russia - critical in the making of semiconductor wafers

Russian Oil-Related Listings

• Seven Russian refineries: Tuapse, Komsomolsk, Angarsk, Achinsk, Ryazan, Afipsky and Lukoil's plant in Usinsk
• Two listed Russian oil producers: Bashneft and Slavneft
• Russian shipping insurance company Soglasie
• Novus Middle East, a UAE-based company that controls previously sanctioned 2Rivers Group, formerly Coral Energy
• UAE-based firms that the EU says are linked to the shadow fleet: Centauri Services LLC, Lumen Ship Management FZCO, Alghaf Marine DMCC and Lark Ship Management LLC
• United Capital Partners Investment and its founder, Gazprom Flot, Gazprom LNG Technologies, Gazstroyprom, Gazpromneft Marine Bunker, Rosneftflot and Lukoil Nizhnevolzhskneft that runs Russia's largest Caspian oilfield Filanovsky

Bans on Crypto, Banks, and Circumvention

• Bans on doing transactions with an additional 20 Russian banks and third-country lenders for enabling sanctions circumvention in Kyrgyzstan, Laos and Azerbaijan
• Kyrgyzstan is the first country hit by the EU's anti-circumvention tool. The package bans EU sales of metal-cutting machines and communications machines for voice, image and data transmissions such as modems and routers to the Central Asian country

New Bans Related to Russian Expropriations and Legal Claims

• The package introduces clauses that will enable the EU to ban direct or indirect business with any company or person outside the EU that tries to enforce Russian legal claims except for humanitarian purposes
• Further, the package will allow the EU in future to ban transactions with Russian companies that benefit from "temporary management" or expropriation of EU assets under Russia's counter-sanctions rules and that use EU companies' intellectual property
• EU companies can go to EU courts to sue for damages caused by Russian claims enforced in third-country courts

Russian Metals and Chemicals

• Ban on imports of Russian metals including nickel bars, iron ores and concentrates, unrefined and processed copper, and various scrap metals including aluminium
• Ban on imports of Russian materials such as salt, pebbles, silicon, furskins, chemicals, rubber and articles made of vulcanised rubber
• Ban on exports of certain EU chemicals, rubber materials and industrial tractors to Russia
• Import quota for Russian ammonia set at 688,000 metric tons based on 2025 trade volumes

(Reporting by Julia Payne, Editing by William Maclean and Andrew Heavens)