The European Union is preparing what would be its largest package of sanctions against Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to Seznam Zprávy. The move keeps Brussels on its familiar path of incremental escalation, but sanctions specialists warn the strategy has structural limits no single package can overcome.

"Sanctions are like a slow puncture in a tyre," said Tom Keatinge, on how the EU's rolling measures against Russia work, per Seznam Zprávy. Each additional round adds pressure on Moscow's war economy, but does not disable it outright.

Keatinge's central caveat: gaps persist that Europe itself has the power to close, according to the same report — meaning the limiting factor is not just Russian resilience or third-country workarounds, but the bloc's own willingness to close loopholes it already knows about.

Hypothesis: the size of the new package may be driven as much by a need to demonstrate continued Western unity ahead of a long war of attrition as by expectations of a decisive economic effect. Supporting this: Keatinge's own comparison implies diminishing marginal impact from each round. Against this: the source material does not disclose the package's contents, timing, or the political motivations behind its scale, so this remains unconfirmed speculation rather than an established fact.

What to watch: whether the new package specifically targets the loopholes Keatinge references; how EU member states and Washington coordinate enforcement once the measures are adopted; and whether public and political appetite in the EU for further rounds holds as the war extends into its costlier phases.