The toilets became a kind of symbol of how Russian President Vladimir Putin has done nothing to improve the lives of his subjects during his 24-year rule – forcing the occupying soldiers to actively engage in marauding, first in Georgia in 2008 and, since 2022, in Ukraine, without complaining about the trophies of war even the toilets of local residents. About a fifth of Russian homes are still not equipped with toilets.
Last spring, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky quipped that Russians had long dreamed of seeing Paris and died, now their dream is to “steal a toilet bowl and die”, but in a January speech he mocked the occupiers’ passion for stealing toilet bowls, because “they will need them on the way to home”.
In addition to plumbing goods, LEDs, forklifts, letter sorting machines, chimneys, bricks, tires and some other goods will be on the sanctions list.
In addition, the European Union plans to impose fines on banks and individual bankers who help Russian citizens hide their assets in European countries. The amount of recovered fines will not exceed 10 percent of the total annual turnover of banks and their structural units worldwide. The amount of fines applicable to individual bankers is planned to be limited to 50 thousand euros or 5 thousand euros for each day of violation.
Four more Russian banks, including Alfa-Bank, Tinkoff and Rosbank, will be disconnected from the SWIFT international settlement system, and RT Arabic and Sputnik Arabic will be added to the list of banned Kremlin propaganda mouthpieces.
True, “EUobserver” expresses confusion as to why, almost a year after the start of the war, sanctions are still not directed against, for example, Russia’s diamond processing and nuclear industries, continuing to export potential weapons components to Russia, while repressing such trifles as toilet bowls.
