European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that an EU embargo on most Russian oil imports will mean Russia gets “less resources, less financial resources to feed the war machine.”
Borrell said that while the EU cannot stop Russia from selling to other customers, European countries were its “most important client,” and it will have to accept lower prices.
EU leaders agreed late Monday to ban two-thirds of Russian oil imports as part of a compromise deal to increase pressure on Russia while accounting for the economic effects on some EU nations that are more reliant on Russian oil supplies.
The embargo cuts off Russian oil delivered by sea, while exempting oil imported through pipelines.
Landlocked Hungary had threatened to oppose restrictions on oil imports, a move that would have scuttled the effort that requires consensus of all EU members. European Council President Charles Michel said he expects EU ambassadors to formally endorse the embargo, which is part of a larger sanctions package, on Wednesday.
Ukrainian leaders have long called for banning Russian oil imports in order to deny Russia income it can use to fuel its war effort. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his appeal as he spoke to the EU earlier Monday.
Combined with pledges from countries such as Germany to phase out their Russian oil imports, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the agreement will “effectively cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of the year.”
Other parts of the sanction package include assets freezes and travel bans on individuals, and excluding Russia’s biggest banks, Sberbank, from the SWIFT global financial transfer system. The EU is also barring three Russian state-owned broadcasters from distributing content in EU countries.
EU leaders also agreed to provide Ukraine with $9.7 billion in assistance for the country’s economy and reconstruction efforts.
Luhansk fighting
Fierce fighting erupted on the streets of the eastern Ukraine city of Sievierodonetsk, with Kyiv’s forces trying desperately to fight off the Russian onslaught.
Sievierodonetsk Mayor Oleksandr Stryuk said Tuesday that Russian forces controlled half the city.
Stryuk told the Associated Press that an estimated 13,000 civilians remained in the city that once had 100,000 residents.
He estimated Monday that since the war began 1,500 civilians in the city have died in Russian attacks and from a lack of medicine or treatment.
Sievierodonetsk, the last major Ukrainian-held population center in the eastern Luhansk province, has become the focus of Russian attacks as Moscow attempts to control the Donbas region after failing to topple Zelenskyy or capture the capital, Kyiv, during more than three months of fighting. Sievierodonetsk is about 140 kilometers from the Russian border.
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden said he would not send rocket systems to Ukraine that could reach Russia. Ukraine has received extensive U.S. military aid but has requested more powerful rocket systems.
Toll on journalists
Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Monday that 32 media workers had been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion.
That includes French journalist Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, who died Monday near Sievierodonetsk.
French broadcaster BFM TV said the 32-year-old journalist was hit by shrapnel while reporting on Ukrainian evacuations from the area.
French President Emmanuel Macron sent his condolences to the family and colleagues of Leclerc-Imhoff, writing in a tweet that the journalist died showing "the reality of the war."
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who was in Ukraine on Monday, called for an investigation into the journalist’s death, saying in a statement that "France demands that a probe be carried out as soon as possible."
Soldier convicted
A Ukrainian court on Tuesday sentenced two Russian soldiers to 11 1/2 years in prison for shelling civilian buildings in the Kharkiv region.
The soldiers, who had been captured, pleaded guilty in a trial last week.
It is the second war crimes verdict in a Ukrainian court since the war began in late February. A court sentenced a Russian soldier earlier this month to life in prison for shooting a civilian dead.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.