War in Ukraine: Kaja Kallas wants to toughen sanctions, heavy strikes on both sides

The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, announced this Monday in the German newspaper Die Welt that she wanted to increase by a third the number of Russian entities sanctioned due to the war in Ukraine.

Since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, “EU sanctions have already cost Russia dearly, depriving its war machine of more than 1,000 billion euros,” assures Kaja Kallas.

At least 19 people were killed in drone and missile strikes in Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, which included destroying a book market in kyiv, while Moscow faced one of the most massive attacks since the start of the war.

In Russia, a wave of hundreds of Ukrainian drones caused the deaths of five people in a residential area in the southern Rostov region. Three other people were killed in the Belgorod, Kursk and Moscow regions and four more in Russian-controlled Ukrainian territories.

In Ukraine, Russian drones and missiles killed two people in an ArcelorMittal steelworks in Kryvyï Rig (center-east). Another strike on the same town in the evening left one person dead. Attacks also targeted other regions, killing two people in Zaporizhia (south), one in Sumy (north) and another in Donetsk (east).

Ukraine and Russia have been ramping up their long-range strikes for months, causing a growing number of civilian casualties, more than four years after the start of the Russian invasion. Diplomacy is at a standstill and progress on the front has become rare.