The European Commission is preparing a 22nd sanctions package against Russia and at the same time wants to make a proposal for covering Ukraine’s financial needs in 2027. Both drafts are to be presented before the next summit of the European Union on 26 and 27 November, as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday, 12 November, before the start of the summit of the European Political Community in Dublin. “We are preparing the 22nd sanctions package. In addition, as the European Commission we are preparing a proposal on how Ukraine’s financial needs in 2027 can be covered,” von der Leyen said according to Radio Svoboda. “We will present both the sanctions package and the financing proposal before the next meeting of the European Council.”
The timetable is tight: only two weeks lie between the announcement and the summit in Brussels. A 22nd package would be the next step in a series that the EU has put together since the start of Russia’s war of aggression. Already on 16 October, von der Leyen had announced a new, 22nd sanctions package in the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and assured that the EU would not lift its sanctions before the end of the war, as Yevropeiska Pravda reported. How far preparations had progressed at that time remained open.
Where the EU intends to start
In terms of content, the talks are likely to build on the work that the Commission began in early November with partners outside the EU. On Thursday, 5 November, the group of senior EU representatives for restrictive measures met in Brussels, chaired by the EU Commissioner for Financial Services, Maria Albuquerque. As Yevropeiska Pravda reported, citing the Commission’s press office, the focus was on financial transactions via third countries, the Russian arms complex, the export of energy carriers and the activities of the Russian shadow fleet. The use of crypto-assets for prohibited financial transactions and findings by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) on circumvention schemes were also topics. On the same day, the eighth meeting of the Forum of Sanctions Coordinators also took place under the EU Special Representative for Sanctions, David O’Sullivan, in which, alongside EU states, Ukraine, the USA, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland took part.
In this context, the Commission points to the economic effect of the measures taken so far: the growth rate of the Russian economy had fallen from 4.9 per cent in 2024 to 1 per cent in 2025, and near-stagnant growth is expected for 2026 and 2027. High inflation, high interest rates, tax increases and risks of nationalisation had permanently frozen investment in Russia, according to the authority’s account. At the same time, Yevropeiska Pravda concedes that EU sanctions increasingly affect member states’ national interests and that this makes the adoption of new packages more difficult. Switzerland had most recently adopted the EU’s 21st package.
Dublin, Abu Dhabi and the question of Europe’s place at the table
In Dublin, von der Leyen is not only concerned with sanctions. She expressly welcomed the peace talks in Abu Dhabi and stressed how important the participation of European representatives in them is. “I very much welcome the peace talks in Abu Dhabi. And it is good that the Europeans were represented at these talks in order to defend our interests, also because President Zelensky asked for it,” she said according to Radio Svoboda. Zelensky had asked the Europeans to support him in these talks. “And we will support Ukraine – in war as in peace,” von der Leyen said. The EU heads of state and government want to discuss the course of the Abu Dhabi talks on the margins of the Dublin summit.
In Abu Dhabi, two-day negotiations between Ukraine, the USA and Russia had ended on Wednesday, 11 November – according to Radio Svoboda, the first personal meeting of representatives of Russia and Ukraine since February. The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, subsequently confirmed an agreement on a new “extensive” prisoner exchange between Moscow and Kyiv. According to Russian Lieutenant General Alexander Sorin, more than 1000 prisoners are to be exchanged on each side, as Der Tagesspiegel reports. Germany, France and the United Kingdom – the so-called E3 – as well as Italy, NATO and the European Union also took part in the talks; however, their consultations with the US representatives ran separately from the trilateral talks with Russia.
Ukrainian President Zelensky spoke on Wednesday evening at a press conference in Dublin. He considered a breakthrough possible even before the end of the year, he said according to Der Tagesspiegel: there was “today actually this possibility, this time window in which all those participants who are now taking part in the negotiation process sincerely want to achieve a result before 2027”. Previously he had announced via the platform X that an “important humanitarian agreement on the preparation of a new exchange” of prisoners of war had been reached; in addition, Europe must “be represented in all phases of concrete diplomacy”. The US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner travelled to Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where, according to several news agencies, they were received at the airport by Putin’s special representative Kirill Dmitriev. Afterwards they intend to meet Zelensky.
Editorial assessment: For Brussels, the timetable up to the summit on 26 and 27 November is ambitious. Whether the 22nd package will be decided there or merely presented cannot be deduced from the available information – von der Leyen spoke of “presenting”. One thing is clear: the louder the negotiations about peace in Abu Dhabi become, the more pressure the EU is under to deliver quickly on money for 2027 and on pressure on Moscow.
