U.S. and EU Leaders Pledge To Tackle "Third-Country Actors” Who Support Russia's War

Washington D.C./Turan: The U.S,. and EU leaders on Friday pledged to work to address “third-country actors” who have supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports from the White House.

President Joe Biden welcomed the European Union’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, to the White House Friday afternoon.

"We are deepening our joint work to aggressively enforce our sanctions and export control measures and also to end and deter circumvention and backfill, including by expanded authorities to close down Russia's access to all inputs that can support its war machine," the leaders said in a joint statement.

"Putin thought that he would divide us, and yet we are more united than ever. We stand together in our unwavering support for Ukraine for as long as it takes," they added.

As part of new steps, Washington and Brussels will "target additional third-country actors across the globe to disrupt support for Russia's war from any corner of the world where it is identified," as the leaders put it.

They went on to elaborate, "We are working in lockstep to limit Russian revenue even further while ensuring continued energy supplies to emerging market and developing countries via the G7+ price cap for seaborne Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products. We will continue to work together to strengthen our economic restrictions to ensure that the costs to Russia of its illegal war continue to grow."

Asked by reporters what she made of the U.S. warnings that China is considering arming Russia, von der Leyen said the following:  “We have discussed the issue of sanctions and sanctions circumvention. We share concerns on this and are cooperating on a daily basis. In particular, we discussed the sensitive issue of military back-filling to Russia. We have already sanctioned third countries such as Iran for circumventing our sanctions.”

The two have also discussed trade and ways to reduce the European Union’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and energy.

Alex Raufoglu