The European Union plans to close its airspace to Russian airlines, fund weapons purchases to Ukraine and ban some pro-Kremlin media outlets in its latest response to Russia’s invasion, European Commission officials said.
The measures, which commission president Ursula von der Leyen said she expected to be endorsed, would mark the first time the 27-nation bloc finances the purchase and delivery of weapons and equipment to a country under attack.
“Another taboo has fallen. The taboo that the European Union was not providing arms in a war,” said the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The commission’s plans followed the announcement earlier in the day that Germany was committing 100 billion euros (£84 billion) to a special armed forces fund and would keep its defence spending above 2% of GDP from now on.
The shift underscored how Russia’s war on Ukraine was rewriting Europe’s post-Second World War security and defence policy in ways that were unthinkable only a few weeks ago.
Anti-war protesters, meanwhile, took to the streets in Berlin, Rome, Prague, Istanbul and other cities – even Russian cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg and in a dozen Belarusian cities – to demand an end to the war, the largest ground offensive on the continent since the Second World War.
Human rights advocates reported that more than 170 people had been arrested in the Belarusian protests, even as the country’s authoritarian leader offered the country’s territory to his ally Russia.
In Minsk, a large pile of flowers kept growing at the building of Ukraine’s embassy.
Tens of thousands of people massed on Sunday in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, with some carrying posters with slogans such as “Hands off Ukraine,” “Tanks to Windmills” and “Putin, go to therapy and leave Ukraine and the world in peace.”
The EU’s plan to fund weapons purchases was unprecedented and would use millions of euros to help buy air defence systems, anti-tank weapons, ammunition and other military equipment to Ukraine’s armed forces.
It would also supply things such as fuel, protective gear, helmets and first aid kits.
The system might also use EU money to reimburse EU countries that have already sent lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine this year, giving an incentive for those countries to invest more in such assistance.
To bolster its military training and support missions around the world, the 27-nation bloc has set up a European Peace Facility, a fund with a ceiling of around 5.7 billion euros (£4.8 billion).
Some of the money can be used to train and equip partner countries, including with lethal weapons.
Ms von der Leyen said that beyond the weapons purchases, EU nations would shut down EU airspace for Russians – a decision that more than a dozen EU members had already announced.
“We are proposing a prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian-registered or Russian-controlled aircraft. These aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU,” she said.
She said the EU will also ban “the Kremlin’s media machine. The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union”.
Ms von der Leyen added that the EU will also target Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko for supporting Russia’s widespread military campaign in Ukraine.
“We will hit Lukashenko’s regime with a new package of sanctions,” she said.
On the sanctions front, Japan joined the United States and European nations in cutting key Russian banks from the Swift international financial banking system.
Japan will also freeze assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials, while sending 100 million dollars in emergency humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.
