Zelenskyy warned against passive sanctions: Should we wait for chemical weapons?

Kateryna Tyshchenko - Monday, March 28, 2022, 22:46

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns countries around the world of a passive sanctions policy against Russia and making sanctions dependent on further Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Source: Zelenskyy’s address

Verbatim: "There are many hints and warnings now that sanctions will be tightened, such as an embargo on Russian oil supplies to Europe, if Russia uses chemical weapons."

"There are simply no words. Just think about how we come to this: waiting for chemical weapons. We, people who are alive, have to wait. Doesn’t everything Russian troops have done to date warrant an oil embargo? Don’t phosphorous bombs warrant it? A shelled chemical production facility or a shelled nuclear power plant doesn’t warrant it?"

Details: Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine cannot and will not agree with the passive sanctions position of some entities against Russia.

"There should be no suspended sanctions packages - say, if Russian troops do something, then there will be some answer. We have already gone through this story last year, when we said that strong preventive sanctions against Russia are necessary to prevent invasion. The preventive sanctions package wasn’t implemented, and a full-scale war has begun," he recalled.

Zelensky stressed that the sanctions packages should be effective and not create the illusion in Russia, "that will be permitted to continue doing what they are doing now."

"This week we are creating a group of Ukrainian and international experts at the Presidential Office who will constantly analyse the sanctions against Russia and their actual effect. Our goal is to make the sanctions work as intended, so that there is no possibility of bypassing them," - the president reported.