Monitor News Desk
BRUSSELS: Tightening its noose, European Union (EU) on Sunday decided to shut down its airspace for Russian airlines and ban `pro-Kremlin’ media outlets.
“For the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack,” tweeted European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“We are shutting down the EU airspace for Russians. We are proposing a prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian-registered, or Russian-controlled aircraft. These aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU,” she said.
Ursula von der Leyen said the EU will ban “the Kremlin’s media machine. The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union.”
Von der Leyen added that the EU will also target Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko for supporting Russia’s widespread military campaign in Ukraine. “We will hit Lukashenko’s regime with a new package of sanctions,” she said.
EU’s decision comes on the day Russian President Vladimir Putin placed nuclear deterrent forces on a “special” alert.
The move was announced during Putin’s meeting with Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov.
“Western countries are not only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic area. I’m speaking about the illegitimate sanctions that everyone is well aware of. However, the top officials of the leading NATO countries also make aggressive statements against our country as well,” Putin stated.
Putin gave his “special gratitude” for troops involved in the “special operation to provide assistance to the people’s republics of Donbas” – a reference to the Kremlin’s propaganda line that it intervened in Ukraine to help pro-Russian separatists who were at risk of ‘genocide’ at the hands of the legitimate government, the report said.
Russian forces on Sunday entered Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv after failing in their overnight efforts to seize control of the capital city of Kyiv – as Ukraine’s president today said his country was ready for peace talks.
