EU to extend sanctions on Russia 

BRUSSELS – Meeting in Brussels, European Union ambassadors have agreed to extend economic sanctions on Russia by another six months to the end of January 2016, and prolong an investment ban on Crimea for another year. EU foreign ministers are expected to approve the six-month extension of the economic sanctions hitting Russia’s energy, financial, and military sector at a meeting in Luxembourg on June 22. The Crimea measures, prohibiting EU companies from investing and importing from the peninsula, can be given the green light already on June 19. The sanctions were imposed for one year in July 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March and its alleged support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. In March, EU heads of government decided that the duration of the restrictive measures against Russia would be linked to the complete implementation of the Minsk agreement. (RFE/RL)