Kyiv
(Picture: Getty Images)The EU will close its airspace to Russian planes and fund arms for Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen has announced.
The European Commission president said she was “shutting down the EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft” in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“They won’t be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU. Including the private jets of oligarchs,” she said.
The bloc will also ban Russia Today from broadcasting anywhere in EU in a bid to crackdown on Vladimir Putin’s media machine.
“We are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe,” Ms Von der Leyen said.
Belarus will face sanctions that will target key sectors as well as individuals identified as helping the Russian government, including president Alexander Lukashenko.
“We will hit Lukashenko’s regime with a new package of sanctions,” Ms von der Leyen said.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that ministers of the bloc’s 27 member states will consider a proposal to use common funds to finance weapons, fuel and medical supplies for Ukraine.
Ms Von der Leyen said the EU would welcome “with open arms” Ukrainians who “have to flee from Putin’s bombs”.
It comes after the EU, US and their allies agreed to cut off a number of Russian banks from the main international payment system, Swift.
They did not name the banks that would be expelled, but an EU diplomat said some 70 per cent of the Russian banking market would be affected.
The decision - which the French finance minister had called a “financial nuclear weapon” because of the damage it would inflict on the Russian economy - deals a blow to Russia’s trade and makes it harder for its companies to do business.
Swift, a secure messaging network that facilitates rapid cross-border payments, said it was preparing to implement the measures.
Mr Putin has criticised the West for imposing hard-hitting financial sanctions against his country.
On Sunday he put Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert amid tensions with the West over the invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking at a meeting with his top officials, Putin said that leading Nato powers had made “aggressive statements” about Russia.
