New US and EU sanctions to hit Russia's energy and banking sectors

The United States and its European allies are discussing new sanctions against Russia.

The statement was made by US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Interfax reports.

“We are well aligned now on what a next round of economic sanctions [against Russia] would look like,” she said at the German Marshall Fund.

According to Nuland, the US and the EU “are now working on a series of sanctions in the energy sector, in the banking sector, in the defense sector.”

She accused Moscow of supporting militants in Ukraine's southeast in a “very dangerous way” and added: “There is no question that we had a serious deterioration on the ground over the last week.”

Washington is disappointed that France continues to sell Mistral assault ships to Russia, according to the diplomat.

“We made it clear well before the Ukraine crisis that we had large concerns about whether Mistral was the right thing to be sending,” Nuland noted. “We have not been shy about saying that the timing is certainly wrong,” she added.

The White House earlier said it hoped that Ukraine and Russia would continue gas talks.