On March 15, 2022, the European Commission announced that it has officially approved the fourth package of economic and individual sanctions against Russia due to its military invasion of Ukraine.

The new round of sanctions includes bans on all transactions with certain Russian state-owned enterprises, new investments in the Russian energy sector, imports of iron, steel, and luxury goods from Russia, and so on.

The prohibition on steel imports from Russia was expected to cause a loss of export revenues of approximately EUR 3.3 billion for Russia.

The EU sanctions came into force on March 15.