Europe Rules Out Easing Of Russian Sanctions, Killing Ceasefire Hopes

French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting nations in Paris who make up a ‘coalition of the willing’ in their continued support to Ukraine, and on Thursday he has announced that sanctions on Russia will not be lifted, as unanimously agreed to among participants.

The twenty-seven heads of mostly European states and governments represented there further agreed there will be no easing of sanctions in exchange for a Black Sea ceasefire.

A new Black Sea peace initiative was unveiled by Washington at the Riyadh talks, and agreed to by both warring parties as of Wednesday, and would see Russian food and agricultural sanctions lifted, as well as the reconnection of Russian agricultural banks to the international Swift payment system.

The Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov points out that “The lifting of sanctions on banking, as demanded by Russia, cannot be done without European say so. Now what?”

Russia has said the naval ceasefire would only come into force after Washington lifts sanctions against its food and fertilizer trade. The energy and Black Sea ceasefires were first announced Tuesday.

There was already severe disagreement with Ukraine concerning its scope and implementation, but Moscow said it was willing to play ball. “In accordance with the agreement between the presidents of Russia and the United States, both sides have committed to implementing the Black Sea initiative,” a Kremlin statement had announced, affirming the US-backed agreement.

“This initiative includes guaranteeing safe navigation in the Black Sea, refraining from the use of force, and prohibiting the use of commercial vessels for military purposes, while establishing appropriate control measures through inspections of such vessels.”

But Ukraine on the same day had already accused Moscow of “lying” about the terms of the agreement: The Ukrainian defense ministry said the movement of Russian warships outside the “eastern part of the Black Sea” would be treated as a violation of the agreement, according to regional media.

Thus it seems both Kiev and Europe are setting up the Trump-backed partial ceasefire to fail before it even gets off the ground.

As for Macron, he said Thursday that while he welcomes the role of Presdient Trump in overseeing the peace talks, the stance of the ‘coalition of the willing’ remains clear. “fundamentally, to win peace, and to do this, we must place Ukraine in the best possible position to negotiate and ensure that the peace that will be negotiated will be solid and lasting,” he said.

He charged that it remains Russia who is unwilling to abide by terms of the proposed ceasefires, and has been adding unacceptable conditions. The UK’s Starmer too said in Paris that “There was absolute clarity that Russia is trying to delay [peace], is playing games, and we have to be absolutely clear about that.”

Building a robust peace for Ukraine and Europe. pic.twitter.com/xW2yAkrshf

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 27, 2025

The British prime minister also hailed “complete clarity that now is not the time for lifting of sanctions.” He went so far to say “Quite the contrary, what we discussed is how we can increase sanctions to support the US initiative, to bring Russia to the table through further pressure from this group of countries.”

“What came out was strong from the meeting was so many countries standing, as they’ve stood for over three years now, with Ukraine in this crucial moment for as long as it takes for” he said. This certainly pushes peace back further on the horizon – but at this point Moscow is probably OK with that, as its forces gobble up more territory. The longer this drags on, the worse the ground reality gets for the Ukrainian side.

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