UPDATE: EU prolongs sanctions against Crimea for one year

(Adds details in last paragraph)

MOSCOW, Jun 19 (PRIME) -- Foreign ministers of the E.U. member states on Monday prolonged sanctions against Crimea for one year without discussion, the E.U. Council said in a statement.

“On June 19, 2017, the Council extended the restrictive measures in response to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia until June 23, 2018,” the statement read.

The sanctions prohibit E.U. citizens and companies to import products from Crimea, invest in the peninsula, provide tourism services, and to export some goods and transport, telecommunications, energy, and production and processing of oil, gas and minerals technologies to Crimea.

The sanctions were introduced in June 2014 after Crimea overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a referendum in March 2014.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the Kremlin dislikes the sanctions and disagrees with them. “We don’t think they are legitimate, moreover, we think these sanctions hurt not only us but the countries that imposed them as well,” he said

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