PARIS — EU sanctions against Russia over the crisis in Ukraine are cutting both ways: hurting Russia as well as pinching some big European companies. But economic relief isn’t likely any time soon, diplomats and analysts say, since EU divisions make the sanctions tough to overturn.

France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine are trying to set up talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, to ease the tensions behind the sanctions that have hit the Russian economy, sent the ruble sinking and affected corporate Europe – including banks, oil companies, machinery makers and food giants.

European Union rules complicate any attempt to modify the sanctions put into place last year amid the separatist violence in eastern Ukraine and after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

A unanimous decision by all 28 EU nations is needed to change the sanctions, and analysts say such unanimity doesn’t exist.

The main EU sanctions – which have hit Russian banks and oil companies and have banned arms exports and the export of dual-use goods – are in place until the end of July.

A first review of some sanctions could come in March.

“We don’t turn any sanction screw just for the sake of turning,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters Monday. “The sanctions are responses to concrete situations from the Russian side and concrete situations in eastern Ukraine.”

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