Ukraine and its partners in the world need to work to ensure that sanctions against the Russian Federation are sufficiently destructive, said head of the President’s Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak.

"The war continues. Everyone saw the horrors that took place in the town of Bucha. And this means that sanctions are not enough to stop Russia. Therefore, all of us and our partners need to work to ensure that the sanctions are sufficiently destructive," Yermak said during an online meeting with a group of Ukrainian and international experts analyzing the real impact of the sanctions applied against Russia and providing proposals to strengthen them.

He also added that it is necessary to impose an embargo on the supply to the Russian Federation of any technologies, equipment, mineral raw materials and ores, rare-earth minerals of dual use to stop the production of weapons in Russia and expand the sanctions list against politically significant persons of the Russian Federation and their family members.

In addition, according to Yermak, secondary sanctions are very important, involving the inclusion in the sanctions list of legal entities and individuals of other countries that help Russian sub-sanctioned persons to avoid restrictions.

In turn, former U.S. ambassador to Russia and former national security adviser to the U.S. President, Michael McFaul, who is the coordinator of the international group of experts, suggested at the meeting to focus on sanctions on oil and natural gas.

Deputy head of the President’s Office Rostyslav Shurma added that it is also necessary to work on the recognition of the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism and inclusion in its "black list" of the International Group on Combating Money Laundering (FATF) in order to restrict trade with the Russian Federation.

In addition, he noted that it is necessary to disconnect from SWIFT the entire banking system of the Russian Federation, in particular Sberbank and Gazprombank, a ban on land transport, in particular rail, as well as ships to enter the territory controlled by the Russian Federation to Russian ports, and transport that belongs to Russians or transports cargo of Russian owners to enter international ports.