Does The EU Still Have The Sanctions Cards Needed To Hurt Russia?

With the ink still drying on the European Union's freshly printed 17th sanctions package on Russia, work is already under way on a next step that European leaders say will be "massive."

But some analysts warn that, in many ways, the EU has already played its best cards and doesn't have many left, especially at a time when Washington seems reluctant to join in as it pushes peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

"The cards that we still have to play largely include measures for which we would need the United States," Benjamin Hilgenstock, senior economist at the Kyiv-based KSE Institute, a think tank, told RFE/RL.

"Specifically, this would be about removing Russian oil and gas from global markets in volume," he said, adding that counties such as India, China, and Turkey would not stop buying Russian fossil fuels without the weight of secondary US sanctions.

European leaders threatened Russia with "massive" sanctions on May 10 if Moscow did not agree to a 30-day cease-fire proposed by Washington. They said they were making their demand after coordinating it with US President Donald Trump.

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European Leaders Urge Russia To Agree To Cease-Fire

It was meant to appear as a game-changing moment, but the apparent transatlantic concord quickly went awry.

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not commit to a cease-fire during a phone call with Trump on May 19, yet Trump praised the call and did not appear ready to announce new US sanctions saying imposing them now could imperil talks and make the situation "much worse."

To be clear: The "massive" sanction threat had nothing to do with the 17th package of EU measures announced on May 20, as this had already been some time in the works.

An Empty Threat?

European leaders may need to deliver something big by themselves, without US involvement -- or appear to have made an empty threat.

Can they deliver?

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys thinks so. He told RFE/RL that the EU could redouble its efforts on Russia's energy exports.

"We should stop the major income to Russia's budget and major income to their war machine. This is the exports of gas, oil, LNG. We have to stop those," he said.

But in practice, countries such as Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium are actually importing more LNG, or liquified natural gas, now than they were a year ago. Budrys argued there were plenty of alternatives on the global market.

"There are voices that say, 'Oh, they're too expensive and it will cost us too much, we can't afford this.' Look, we (Lithuania) already did this," he added.

But the arguments about price illustrate that the self-harming impacts of sanctions have held the EU back in the past, and may do in the future, too.

Sanctions will be "massive, only when we are willing to go further than we would like to go," Tom Keatinge of the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) told RFE/RL.

"By that I mean only when we're willing to inflict sanctions that have a degree of blowback on our own economies," he added.

An LNG tanker makes a delivery at a terminal in Swinoujscie, Poland (file photo)

Hitting Energy Exports

Hilgenstock makes a distinction between countries using Russian LNG for economic reasons and countries such as Hungary and Slovakia that would oppose an import ban due to their close political relationship with Moscow.

Even if economic objections can be overcome, political considerations can also delay or complicate a significant tightening of sanctions in this area.

European leaders have suggested that the next sanctions package will include the energy sector, but that's a broad term. Some have also suggested financial measures.

"It's relatively unclear what they are actually talking about," said Hilgenstock, who is also an Associate Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

"Are they overselling what they can deliver? I think they are."

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen did provide some indication of what might come next in remarks on May 16.

"It will include working on listing more vessels of the Russian shadow fleet," she said, referring to ships without clear ownership used to evade restrictions on Russian oil and oil products.

The 17^th sanctions package, along with British measures announced the same day, already added dozens of ships, following the pattern of previous packages. As such, adding new ships would appear like further cumulative action rather than something bold and new.

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen arrives prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels on May 20.

'All Talk And No Trousers'

Von der Leyen also mentioned reducing the oil price cap for Russian oil, another punitive measure imposed after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But this too would require US agreement for global enforcement.

Three years of sanctions have had a big impact on the Russian economy but have not stopped Moscow's aggression.

Still, announcing the latest measures, European politicians were resolute.

UK Foreign Minister David Lammy called Putin a "warmonger" while urging him to agree to the 30-day cease-fire, adding that "delaying peace efforts will only redouble our resolve to help Ukraine to defend itself and use our sanctions to restrict Putin's war machine."

EU Foreign Affairs chief Kaja Kallas wrote on social media that "more sanctions on Russia are in the works."

Keatinge warns that not following through with genuinely impactful sanctions risks undermining credibility.

"It gives plenty of ammunition to [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov and others to basically say…the Europeans are all talk and no trousers."

Hilgenstock shares the concern.

"We're seeing Vladimir Putin's response, or rather non-response to this ultimatum," he says, referring to the May 10 statement on "massive" sanctions.

"That makes clear what the Russian side thinks."