According to reports coming to Reuters from the diplomatic community and officials, it is planned to extend by six months sanctions imposed on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine after a meeting in Brussels on 15 December 2016 . The meeting is summit of the heads of European countries will be the latest in 2016. The decision to extend sanctions will be fixed around December 20, 2016.
Sanctions, which had to expire late in January 2017, include limiting of Russian access to international Finance, military and energy cooperation.
On 08 Dec 2016 UN released report, which speaks about human rights violation in Ukraine and the agreements reached in Minsk. The report is based on 176 individual interviews and suggests that the Minsk agreement was not followed by any of the parties. The conflict took the lives of 9’733 people.
Also the Western press with reference to the Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May says that the US and Europe are United in condemnation of Russia’s participation in “the atrocities in Syria” and threaten Russia with new sanctions.
Sources: Reuters, Le Monde, BBC
