EU agrees on a new sanctions package over invasion of Ukraine

The European Union has agreed a new round of sanctions targetting senior Russian officials and oligarchs in retaliation for Moscow's invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, France said on Wednesday.

The new sanctions will also include restrictions on the maritime sector and exclude three Belarussian banks from the SWIFT banking system, France, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, said in a series of tweets.

The additional sanctions will be formally approved by leaders of the bloc's 27 member states at a summit in Versailles, France, on Thursday and Friday.

More than two million people have fled Ukraine and hundreds of thousands have been left trapped without access to medicine or fresh water since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion nearly two weeks ago.

Moscow calls its action a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbour and dislodge leaders it calls "neo-Nazis." Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss that as a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war against a democratic country of 44 million people. 

The new sanctions were agreed upon at a so-called COREPER II meeting, which convenes each member state's permanent representatives to the bloc, ahead of the summit.