BRUSSELS — The EU will save its Russia sanctions from expiring after officials reached an eleventh-hour deal with Hungary, which had threatened to trash the wartime penalties.
The agreement was cemented by Monday morning, six diplomats told POLITICO, allowing the EU’s sanctions to be renewed before a Saturday deadline, which would have allowed Moscow to claw back billions in frozen funds. All 27 EU countries must reauthorize the sanctions every six months.
In exchange for relenting, Hungary got EU officials to make a noncommittal statement on the importance of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — an oblique reference to Budapest’s concerns about the end of Russian gas flowing through Ukraine.
Kremlin-friendly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had previously vowed to veto the sanctions renewal unless Ukraine agreed to restart Russian gas flows, which ended at the start of the year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused, insisting he will not let Russia “earn additional billions on our blood.”
