SANCTIONS AGAINST THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND COMPANIES ASSISTING WITH EVASIONHearing organised by the PACE Parliamentary and Electoral Cooperation Division in collaboration with the Lithuanian Delegation to PACE

Date/time: 24 May 2024 from 16 h 00-17 h 30

Venue: Seimas Plenary Chamber – Gedimino pr. 53, LT-01109 Vilnius, Lithuania

Background ■ The Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly have, since the very start of Russia’s large-scale military aggression, mobilised all instruments available to ensure the Russian Federation’s full accountability for violations of human rights and for serious violations of international law.

■ PACE Resolution 2506 (2023) on “Political consequences of the Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine” recalls that the Reykjavik Declaration sets the tone in unequivocal terms: supporting Ukraine should be a political imperative for the Council of Europe and its member States.

■ Furthermore, it underlines that supporting Ukraine also requires curtailing the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war of aggression. While it acknowledges and welcomes the fact that a large coalition of countries and the European Union have imposed an unprecedented range of diplomatic, financial and economic restrictive measures against the Russian Fede-ration, it also affirms that the existence of loopholes in the sanctions system and avoidance techniques used by the Russian Federation and private companies, including in Council of Europe member States, have reduced the system’s effectiveness.

■ The Assembly believes that the international community should strengthen the system of sanctions against the Russian Federation, enhance its effectiveness, exert its influence to expand the number of countries applying sanctions, and tackle the issue of sanction circumvention.

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