European Union leaders agreed on Friday March 21st to step up moves to cut energy dependency, notably on Russia after events in Ukraine.
EU Council president Herman Van Rompuy said the bloc’s 28 leaders had agreed at a two-day summit to outline an energy security framework at their next top-level meeting in June.
this is while Russian politicians including deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin are reported to be on a fresh European Union list of 12 people subject to an EU asset freeze and visa ban, accprdomg tp diplomats.
Also on the list is Federation Council, or upper house, member Valentina Matviyenko, formally Russia’s third most important politician. Like Rogozin she has also been targeted by the US administration in punitive measures linked to the Ukraine crisis.
Lower house Duma member Sergey Narychkin is also reported to be on the list along with an advisor to President Vladimir Putin, Vladislav Surkov.
“All these sanctions aren’t worth a grain of sand of the Crimean land that returned to Russia,” Rogozin said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, France has suspended most of its military cooperation with Russia, the French defense minister said Friday, March 21st as Paris was still mulling whether to nix the sale of two Mistral warships to Moscow.
Paris has suspended “the majority of its military cooperation with Russia” in the wake of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in Estonia’s capital Tallinn.
“Contacts between the chiefs of staff of France and Russia have been annulled,” a source close to the minister said.
A joint military exercise between the EU, Britain, France and Russia planned for April has also been cancelled, the sources said.
France will offer to send four fighter jets to the Baltic States and Poland to boost NATO air patrols over the region should the alliance request them, the source revealed.
Besides the Rafale and Mirage 2000 aircraft, Paris will also offer to ensure “AWACS patrols from France around twice a week” if asked by NATO, the source close to the minister said Friday 21 March.
The AWACS aircraft — Airborne Warning and Control System — are among the most sophisticated planes in the NATO armory, capable of monitoring huge swathes of airspace.
The United States is responsible for the patrols until May. Given the tense situation in Ukraine, it sent additional F-15 fighter jets to the region earlier this month, bringing their total to 10 aircraft.
Poland will then take over the patrols from the US. The ministry source said France will offer the fighter jets, along with the AWACS early warning aircraft, if NATO and Poland deem them necessary.
NATO has already deployed AWACS reconnaissance aircraft to overfly Poland and Romania as part of its efforts to monitor the Ukraine crisis.