The EU Council has adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia. This marks the largest expansion of the sanctions list in four years. For the first time, an EU sanctions package also includes a new mechanism. It can block the crypto services of entire third countries.
An EU sanctions package is a bundle of legally binding measures adopted by the Council of the EU. These include asset freezes, transaction bans, and the listing of individuals and entities. Brussels has imposed such rounds regularly against Russia since the war began in 2022. Over the past three packages, crypto sanctions have become an escalating focus. In October 2025, the 19th package banned a token by name for the first time. The 20th later extended the ban to all Russian and Belarusian crypto service providers. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the proposal on 9 July. After objections from Greece, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal, and Bulgaria, the Council eventually adopted the package. In total, it comprises 218 new listings, of which 170 are entities and 48 are individuals. As a result, more than 100 Russian banks are now under sanctions. That represents more than half of the country's 213 internationally connected lenders. The entire EU sanctions list against Russia now counts nearly 3,000 entries.
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New mechanism blocks crypto services of entire third countries
At the core of the package is a tool the EU did not previously possess. Originally, Brussels could only sanction individual tokens or specific platforms. Now the Council can impose a full transaction ban on the crypto services of an entire third country. This option applies as soon as a state hosts crypto providers that help Russian actors evade sanctions. Thus, the logic of sanctions shifts from individual actors to entire jurisdictions.
To begin with, the package imposes direct transaction bans on 14 listed crypto platforms. These are based in Georgia, Panama, the United Arab Emirates, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. In addition, the Council prohibits Russian nationals from owning, controlling, or holding a board seat in such firms. This refers to companies that offer crypto-asset services. At the same time, the EU thereby addresses both the platforms and the people behind them.
Banks outside Russia also come into focus through this emphasis on evasion. For example, the Council placed a transaction ban on a Kyrgyz bank connected to the Russian payment system SPFS. Furthermore, the same measure hits three additional credit institutions outside Russia for sanctions evasion. As a result, a new, systemic risk emerges for compliance teams. The direct business relationship alone no longer counts; increasingly, the home country of a crypto partner matters too.
More than 100 Russian banks now hit by the EU sanctions package
Banking sanctions form the core of these financial measures. The Council imposed asset freezes and a provision ban on 94 Russian banks and major financial institutions. In total, Russia's banking sector now counts more than 100 sanctioned institutions, more than half of its internationally connected lenders.
A separate transaction ban also hits 33 additional credit and financial institutions. At the same time, it cuts these institutions off from the SWIFT payment system. Smaller and regional banks are primarily affected. The largest Russian institutions, however, already lost their SWIFT access in 2022. Consequently, Brussels is now targeting the second tier of the banking system. Part of the severed payment flows most recently ran through this tier.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas ultimately summed up the overall scale of the package in a statement.
"Our 21st package includes the highest number of listings in four years. We are hitting more than a hundred banks and crypto operators, over 40 shadow fleet vessels, and several oil refineries in Russia and Belarus." - Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
The evasion pattern from A7A5 to Grinex
The new third-country mechanism ultimately responds to a pattern that repeated across the recent packages. In October 2025, the 19th sanctions package banned a crypto token by name for the first time. That token was the ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5. The same round also prohibited transactions through the Russian payment systems Mir and SBP. The Kyrgyz company Old Vector LLC, a subsidiary of A7 LLC, issues this token. Behind it, as majority owner, stands the Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor. A court convicted him in absentia of bank fraud running into the billions. Ruble deposits at the sanctioned state bank Promsvyazbank back the stablecoin. It runs on Ethereum and Tron without a freeze function.
A7A5 served as a financial bridge between two exchanges. Law enforcement seized one of them, Garantex, in spring 2025. The successor platform Grinex later took over its function. According to the analytics firm CertiK, A7A5 processed more than 110 billion USD in on-chain transactions in just 16 months. Of that, Elliptic and TRM Labs classified around 34% as wash trading.
The 20th package had already responded to this evasion earlier. It extended the transaction ban to all crypto service providers based in Russia and Belarus. Likewise, it covered the digital ruble, RUBx, and the Belarusian digital ruble. As soon as the EU sanctions a platform or a token, however, traffic shifts elsewhere. The successors sit in more loosely regulated third countries. The new blocking mechanism is meant to pre-empt precisely this pattern.
Oil price cap stays frozen at 44.10 USD for twelve months
Alongside the financial and crypto measures, the package also tightens the screws on Russia's energy revenues. The Council is freezing the oil price cap at 44.10 USD per barrel for twelve months. With the pause, Brussels aims to prevent Russia's war chest from benefiting from market shocks. Without this suspension, the regular review would have had to raise the cap to around 58.50 USD. The Iran-driven price jump was the reason. Russian Urals crude, however, has been trading above the cap since February 2026. Most recently, the price stood at around 67.50 USD per barrel, excluding freight and insurance costs.
At the same time, individual member states negotiated exemptions. Greece received a one-year, automatically renewable exemption for transporting Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Arctic to third countries. As a result, the ban on such transfer services, originally planned for 1 January, does not apply for now. EU imports of Russian LNG nevertheless remain prohibited from that date.
In addition, the package covers more than 40 vessels of the Russian shadow fleet. It also targets several oil refineries in Russia and Belarus. On top of that come more than 50 military-industrial entities involved in the production of long-range drones. Furthermore, EU courts may no longer recognize or enforce Russian court rulings from sanctions proceedings.
