EU lawmaker urges tougher sanctions on Russian goods and oligarchs
Photo: Member of the European Parliament Michael Gahler (facebook.com/michael.gahler.77)
EU sanctions against Russian products and oligarchs who continue to earn income from trade with the European market need to be strengthened.
This opinion was expressed by Michael Gahler during the Odesa Black Sea Security Forum when answering a question on whether sanctions against Russia's metallurgical industry are sufficient.
According to the MEP, Russian metallurgical products are still not subject to a full ban in the European Union, allowing Russian companies and affiliated businessmen to continue earning profits from exports to the EU.
"We need to work on closing this market to them," Gahler emphasized.
He noted that the European Parliament consistently supports new sanctions packages against Russia and advocates expanding secondary sanctions to prevent sanctioned goods from being supplied through intermediaries.
The MEP paid particular attention to schemes used to circumvent restrictions through third countries. According to him, European institutions should make more active use of export agency data to track suspicious trade flows.
"We know how such schemes operate through Kazakhstan or Turkey. These are fairly transparent mechanisms, and they need to be blocked," he said.
In Gahler's view, exporting companies should also be required to verify the final destination of their goods. If they cannot prove that the products will not end up in Russia, export authorization should not be granted.
According to Gahler, stronger export controls, expanded secondary sanctions, and restrictions on Russian metallurgical products entering the European market should become key priorities of EU sanctions policy in the coming years.
What preceded this
As previously reported, the publication Ukrainska Pravda conducted an investigation and found that Vladimir Lisin, Russia’s second-richest person and owner of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant (NLMK), maintains active cooperation with Russian enterprises that manufacture missiles, drones, and nuclear weapons.
At the same time, two of Lisin's plants continue to operate without interruption in the suburbs of Brussels, while Lisin himself, despite his close ties to Vladimir Putin, is not subject to EU sanctions.
It should be recalled that in May 2025, Ukraine imposed new economic and personal sanctions against companies owned by Russian oligarchs. These included 19 Russian energy companies from the Novatek Group, four companies supplying titanium to Russia, two metallurgical companies owned by Lisin, the Volzhsky Abrasive Plant, and Volgaburmash.
