EU’s 21st Sanctions Package: Oil Cap Frozen at $44.10 and 218 New Listings

The Council of the EU adopted the 21st package of restrictive measures against Russia on 23 July 2026, describing it as hitting the sectors with the greatest impact on Russia’s war economy—energy, financial services, crypto and trade—and delivering the largest single round of individual listings in four years, totalling 218 (48 individuals, 170 entities). On energy, the EU froze the Russian oil price cap at $44.10 a barrel for twelve months, suspending a scheduled review that would have lifted it to around $58.50, and listed 41 additional shadow-fleet vessels (taking the total past 670) while creating a new power to confiscate and sell cargoes on detained tankers. On finance, it imposed full asset freezes on 94 financial institutions plus the Moscow Exchange, disconnected 32 banks from SWIFT, and extended transaction bans to 14 third-country crypto platforms in Georgia, Panama, the Marshall Islands, the UAE, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. The deadlock broke after Greece secured a one-year, automatically renewable exemption allowing EU operators to keep transporting Russian LNG to third countries under pre-2022 contracts.