EU member states have exhausted levers of pressure on Moscow, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin said in an interview with TASS.

It is becoming “increasingly difficult” for EU countries “to reach agreements on sectoral restrictions,” he said. “The fact that the measures adopted against our country on October 12 were not officially designated as yet another, 22nd, sanctions package confirms this very trend,” the official added.

“Under the current circumstances, the Council of the EU has managed only to expand its the blacklists of individuals and entities. This once again highlights the structural weakness of the European bureaucracy, which has exhausted its leverage over Moscow but in order to save face can no longer halt its anti-Russian fervor or begin to reverse course,” Pankin noted.