Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a press conference yesterday (11 Teves 5782) on the sidelines of the 6th Eastern Partnership Summit in Brussels. He said "for us it is important to have sanctions applied before rather than after the conflict would happen because if they are applied after the conflict would happen this basically would make them meaningless and we have the war going on for eight years and we understand that only if the sanctions are applied prior to the armed conflict they would become a prevention mechanism for any possible escalation.".