The EU and Ukraine this morning initialised an association agreement sending a strong signal to Moscow that Ukraine is on its way to more integration with the EU.

The political chapters of the agreement were signed with the remaining parts, including economic integration, expected to be concluded shortly following further technical talks.

EU leaders also agreed to increase their political pressure on Russia by increasing the number of Russian officials on the travel ban and asset freeze list and warned that economic sanctions would be introduced if Russia upped the pressure on Ukraine.

The EU leaders were yesterday night locked in long talks on the response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Emerging only in the early hours of the morning, leaders agreed to increase the list of persons close to the Russian regime on the sanction list but stopped short of introducing trade sanctions.

They warned, however, that this would be the next step taken if Russia destabilised further the situation in Ukraine.

“Any further steps by the Russian Federation to destabilise the situation in Ukraine would lead to additional and far reaching consequences for relations in a broad range of economic areas between the European Union and its member states, on the one hand, and the Russian Federation, on the other hand,” the summit conclusions state.

“In this respect, the European Council asks the Commission and the member states to prepare possible targeted measures.”

EU leaders reconfirmed their objective to further strengthen the political association and economic integration with another two former Soviet Union Republics, Georgia and the Moldova.

The summit is expected to end this afternoon.