Foreign minister: 'We are in a world that is in practice on fire'

Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergård said Monday evening that the EU's decision to add about 1,600 names to its Russia sanctions list, after foreign ministers met in Luxembourg, is a 'historically large package' that will have an effect. The EU also aims to use some 210 billion euros in frozen Russian assets and to phase out Russian energy imports by 2027; Stenergård said it is hard to bring Putin to the table without more pressure on Russia, adding that Sweden has 'full ability to influence how we ourselves act,' even if its leverage over US decisions, such as Donald Trump's weekend announcement of a new Russian diesel deal, is limited.

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