Extended Sanctions

From UNIAN:

"Reuters: EU to agree extending economic sanctions on Russia until mid-2018"

European Union leaders will agree on Thursday to prolong for another six months the bloc's economic sanctions on Russia, imposed over the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and Moscow's support for rebels in east Ukraine, according to Reuters.  The main sanctions, which target Russia's energy, defense and financial sectors, would otherwise be due to expire at the end of January 2018, Reuters said. EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday will agree an extension until mid-2018, officials and diplomats in Brussels said.  Moscow says it will never return Crimea, which it annexed in 2014 in a move that has not been recognized internationally. Western countries say Russia has also been providing a lifeline to separatists in eastern Ukraine, where a conflict has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.

^ Russia (or any country) should not believe that something is "set in stone." The Soviets believed that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would last forever and yet it collapsed after 69 years. Nazi Germany said the annexation of Austria in 1938 would last  1,000 years  - like the  rest of the Third Reich - and yet Austria became un-annexed in 7 years and independent 10 years later. It is good that the EU is continuing to stand firm on the sanctions since nothing has changed (at least for the better) in the Ukraine or the Crimea. ^

https://economics.unian.info/2294501-reuters-eu-to-agree-extending-economic-sanctions-on-russia-until-mid-2018.html