European Union leaders are expected on Friday to back extending the bloc's main economic sanctions against Russia over the turmoil in Ukraine until the end of January 2021, diplomatic sources and officials said.
The EU hit Russia's energy, financial and arms sectors after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and went on to back rebels fighting Kyiv government troops in the east of the ex-Soviet republic.
It has rolled them over ever since as Moscow has vowed to never give back the Black Sea peninsula.