Europe agrees to ban most Russian oil imports

BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union decided on Monday to ban most imports of Russian oil, the heaviest economic sanction ever imposed on Russia for invading Ukraine and potentially Europe’s biggest sacrifice.

The agreement is the most recent and far-reaching demonstration that during more than three months of the war, in reaction to the increased Russian aggression and atrocitiesEuropean leaders were willing to take measures they considered too extreme when the invasion began.

They have already banned Russian imports of natural gasThey cut Russian banks from global financial networks, froze Russian assets, and shipped advanced weapons to Ukraine.

After weeks of intense controversy, EU leaders meet in Brussels supported an embargo on Russian oil delivered by tankers, the main method, with commitments a reduce pipeline importsaccording to a draft agreement seen by The New York Times.

The agreement was announced in a night tweet by Charles Michel, president of the European Council, although many details remain to be clarified.

The backup came as a multi-pronged Kremlin assault approached the easternmost Ukrainian-controlled city of Sievierdonetsk.

Russian forces continued their pattern of bombing cities and towns, including civil areas, reducing them to uninhabited wastes before attempting to take control.

At the same time, the Ukrainian army staged a counter-offensive to retake the strategic southern city of Kherson.

And a car bomb in another Russian-controlled city, Melitopol, hinted at the kind of fierce resistance the occupiers may face.

President Vladimir Putin’s war machine is financed by Russian sales of crude and refined oil and natural gas, which account for the bulk of the country’s export earnings, raised primarily by state-controlled energy companies.

With the war driving up prices, EU countries alone paid $ 23 billion a month for Russian oil.

Analysts say Russia, which offers discounts to world market prices, will still find some buyers for its oil, but sales volume and profits are likely drop significantly once the embargo has entered into force.

Europe relies heavily on Russian fuels:

the 27% of the crude oil imported into the EU comes from Russiaand as EU countries scramble to find alternatives, officials have warned that the financial cost to them will be high.

Other sources are expected to be more expensive if they can be organized; the shortage of oil and gas is a real possibility.

The debate on an oil embargo has also highlighted the potential vulnerability of the European bloc, just as the demands of Sweden and Finland to join NATO have exposed rifts within that alliance.

Diplomats express confidence that such differences can be resolved, but remember that the unity that the United States and its allies have so far demonstrated in opposing Russia is not guaranteed.

The strong leader of Hungary, Victor Orban, whose country is more dependent on Russian energy than Western Europe, had delayed any agreement on an oil embargo, calling it an “atomic bomb” for the Hungarian economy.

The controversy illustrates how the EU’s practice of requiring unanimity among the 27 member states for important decisions can become a weak point, especially if Orban, who is on friendly terms with Putin, is asked to take further steps to isolate the Russia.

The limited embargo passed by European leaders was designed to win Orban’s support.

Banning Russian oil deliveries aboard oil tankers would eliminate two-thirds of EU imports, leaving Hungary, a landlocked nation, untouched.

Arriving at the EU summit on Monday, Orban said of the pipeline exemption:

“It’s a good approach.”

expectations

Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany, which also receive Russian oil via pipeline, should have pledged to abandon this source;

Hungary should not provide such security.

In NATO, which also operates by consensus, Turkey has blocked the entry of Finland and Sweden, which have been alarmed enough by Russia’s war against Ukraine to abandon their historic neutrality.

Western diplomats expect that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey, which has been a controversial partner of NATO as Orban has been with the EU, will receive concessions from allies but will ultimately agree.

In the battlefields of the eastern Donbas region, where Russia is focused on conquering more territory, the heaviest fighting takes place around the adjacent battered cities of Sievierdonetsk and Lysychansk, among the most important remaining pockets of Ukrainian control.

After weeks of bombing, Russian forces made their way into the “northeastern and southeastern suburbs” of Sievierdonetsk, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that Russia had channeled even more war material from Russia to the Donbas. .

The fighting in the Donbas has reached “maximum intensity”, said Colonel Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, spokesman for the defense ministry.

He added: “The Russian invaders bombed the entire front line, trying to hit our deep defensive positions with artillery fire.”

Amid reports of Russian war crimes against civilians, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged residents of the Russian-occupied territory to run away how can they to areas controlled by Ukraine, as millions of people have already done.

It’s difficult and dangerous, he admitted, but “in the end it’s a matter of your and your children’s safety.”

civilian casualties

A French journalist was killed on Monday near Lysychansk when a bullet exploded near the evacuation bus he was traveling on, according to Ukrainian and French officials, and his employer, news channel BFM TV. Journalist, Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff, He suffered a fatal shrapnel wound to his neck, said Serhiy Haidai, the Ukrainian governor of the Luhansk region, who said the bullet was fired by Russian forces.

at least others seven reporters they were killed while covering up the conflict, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The weight of the Russian military and the brutality of its tactics have produced territorial gains in the east, but it has suffered heavy losses and Western analysts say it is running out of available resources.

“Russia is likely to have suffered devastating losses among its middle and low-ranking officers,” the UK Defense Ministry said in its latest intelligence update released Monday.

It is likely that the battalions the Russians are putting together “from more surviving units will be less effective”.

Perhaps more threateningly to Moscow, the British cited “multiple credible reports of localized mutinies among Russian forces”.

Hoping to disperse Russian forces leaner than they already are, Ukraine launched a weekend counter-offensive more than 300 miles from Sievierdonetsk, with the aim of retaking Kherson, a strategic port at the bottom of the Dnipro River. in south-central Ukraine.

It was the first major city to fall to the Russians less than a week after the invasion.

“The Ukrainian counterattack does not appear destined to regain substantial territory anytime soon,” the Washington Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment published Sunday, but it will disrupt Russian operations in the south, “and potentially force Russia to deploy reinforcements in the Kherson region, which is predominantly in the hands of lower units. “

In Melitopol, the Kremlin-appointed regional administration said a car bomb injured two aid workers, calling it “a terrorist attack aimed at destabilizing the peaceful life of the city”.

People protested against the occupation Melitopol, where Russian forces kidnapped local officials and replaced them.

Ivan Fyodorov, mayor of Melitopol, who was kidnapped by Russian forces and then returned to Ukraine in a prisoner exchange, said he did not know who was responsible for the attack, but predicted that “The earth will burn”In Melitopol until the Russians leave the city.

Russian forces retained most of the conquered areas in the south at the start of the war.

But a group of fighters held out for weeks at a steel complex in the southern city of Mariupol, blocking major Russian forces before the survivors surrendered this month.

And in the first weeks of the war, the Russian offensives in the north against Kiev, the capital, and Kharkiv, the second largest city, bogged down hopelessly.

Moscow has given up on those campaigns, at least temporarily, a focus on Donbas, and the Ukrainians have regained part of the lost territory.

The failure of those offensives and resistance in Mariupol helped shift Russian tactics towards a slower and more grueling approach, with little apparent concern for civilian casualties or physical destruction.

Describing the continuing bombing of Sievierodonetsk, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video posted online Sunday evening:

“It doesn’t matter how many lives they have to pay.”

Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported from Brussels and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. The reporting was provided by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Marc Santora from Krakow, Poland, Valerie Hopkins from Kiev, Neil MacFarquhar from Istanbul, Cassandra Vinograd and Stanley Reed from London, Carlotta Gall from Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Aurelien Breeden from Paris and Monika Pronczuk from Brussels. .

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