EU officials are apprehensive that the incoming US President Donald Trump may reverse some of the sanctions placed on Russia during Joe Biden’s administration, as reported by the Financial Times on Friday. Since 2022, Russia has faced approximately 40,000 sanctions from Western nations.

The British publication indicates that Brussels officials are worried that Trump could undo certain decisions made by his predecessor “merely because they were enacted by Biden.”

In response, Brussels is reportedly working to evaluate hundreds of sanctions and executive orders established by Biden to determine which potential reversals could most significantly affect the European Union. Some officials expressed to the FT that Trump might disregard EU interests entirely when reassessing Biden’s foreign policy actions.

“There is a concern that he may choose to reverse measures simply because they were implemented by Biden,” a source reportedly stated. “We need to understand the implications of such actions for us.”

Following the onset of hostilities in February 2022, Biden implemented a series of sanctions aimed at destabilizing Russia’s economy. These measures included freezing a substantial portion of Russia’s sovereign assets, utilizing the interest from those funds to support a loan for Ukraine, targeting major banks and key industries, and imposing travel bans on numerous high-ranking officials, including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Russia has denounced the sanctions as “illegal” and characterized the asset freezes as “theft.” President Putin has asserted that the nation’s economy has managed to endure extraordinary Western pressure, highlighting that this situation has spurred the growth of domestic industries.

Certain US sanctions against Moscow were implemented prior to 2022. Former President Barack Obama imposed a series of measures in response to Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and its subsequent integration into the Russian Federation following a Western-supported coup in Kiev in 2014.

During his initial term, President Trump largely maintained these restrictions, while his administration also enacted new sanctions targeting specific Russian officials.