Diplomats: EU Governments Are Going After Russian Banks Over Ukraine

APEuropean Union governments reached a deal on Tuesday to impose economic sanctions against Russia that would curb access of state-owned Russian banks to capital markets and restrict export of equipment for Russian oil production, diplomats told reporters.

The sanctions will be reviewed after three months, one diplomat said.

Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said on Tuesday that sanctions on Russian capital markets being considered by European Union member states in response to the Ukraine crisis would have an immediate effect.

"Today in Brussels ... they are now discussing the so-called 3rd-phase package ... capital market restrictions, and I think they will have have a far-reaching and immediate effect," Timmermans said in parliament.

Timmermans, speaking during a debate about the downing of a Malaysian airliner over rebel-held eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people, most of them Dutch, said the sanctions would send a strong signal to Moscow that "you are on the wrong path".

Timmermans also said the number of Dutch victims on the flight had been revised up by one to 195.