BRUSSELS – The European Union on Monday agreed to ban most Russian oil imports, the harshest economic punishment Russia has imposed for its invasion of Ukraine and potentially its biggest sacrifice yet. main Europe.
This agreement is the most profound and latest demonstration that in more than three months of war, in response to Russian aggression and atrocities, European leaders are ready to take steps that are not they considered it too extreme when the invasion began. They did cut off Russia’s banks from global financial networks, Russian assets are frozen and advanced weapons are sent to Ukraine.
After weeks of bitter debate, EU leaders meeting in Brussels approved an embargo on Russian oil transported by tankers, the main method, with a pledge to reduce imports by pipeline, according to the report. The draft agreement was reported by The New York Times. The deal was announced in a late night tweet by Charles Michel, president of the Council of Europe, although many details remain untouched.
The endorsement came as a multi-Kremlin attack on the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk in the easternmost part of Ukraine, under its control. Russian forces continued the pattern of bombarding cities and towns, including civilian areas, turning them into populated wastelands before attempting to seize control.
At the same time, the Ukrainian army launched a counterattack to retake the strategic city of Kherson in the south. And a car bombing in another Russian-administered city, Melitopol, alludes to the backlash the occupiers may face.
President Vladimir Putin’s war machine is financed by Russian sales of crude and refined oil and natural gas, which accounts for most of the country’s export revenue, mainly by state-owned energy companies. control. With war driving up prices, European Union countries alone pay $23 billion a month for Russian oil.
Russia, at a discount to world market prices, will continue to find some buyers for its oil, but sales volumes and profits are likely to drop significantly under sanctions, analysts say. effective.
Europe is heavily dependent on Russian fuels – 27% of crude oil imports into the European Union come from Russia – and while EU countries are scrambling for alternatives, officials warn that The financial cost to them will be very high. Other sources are expected to be more expensive, if they can be arranged; Gas and oil shortages are a real possibility.
The oil embargo debate has also exposed the EU’s vulnerability, like The request of Sweden and Finland to join NATO showed a rift in that alliance. Diplomats expressed confidence that such differences could be resolved, but they offered a reminder that the solidarity the United States and its allies have shown so far in opposing Russia remains. not guaranteed.
The powerful leader of Hungary, Viktor Orban, whose country is more dependent than Western Europe on Russian energy, has mooted any agreement on an oil embargo, calling it an “atom bomb” against with the Hungarian economy.
The dispute shows how the EU’s demands for consensus among its 27 member states on major decisions can turn out to be weak points – especially if Mr Orban, who has friendly relations with Mr Putin, is called upon. called to take next steps to isolate Russia.
The limited embargo that European leaders espoused was tailored to win Mr Orban’s support. Banning Russian oil shipments on tankers would eliminate two-thirds of EU imports and leave Hungary, a landlocked country, unaffected. Arriving at the EU summit on Monday, Mr Orban said of the pipeline waiver, “It’s a good approach.”
Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany, which also receive Russian oil by pipeline, are expected to commit to excluding themselves from that source; Hungary is not expected to make any such guarantees.
In NATO, which also operates by consensus, Turkey has blocked the admission of Finland and Sweden, countries that were alert enough to the Ukraine war by Russia abandoning their longstanding neutral stances. . Western diplomats predict that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has as a controversial partner to NATO Orban has been to the European Union, will attract concessions from allies but eventually join.
On the battlefield in the eastern Donbas region, where Russia is focused on capturing more territory, the fiercest fighting took place around the adjoining cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, one of the most important remaining regions. of Ukrainian control. After weeks of shelling, Russian forces have entered the “northeastern and southeastern suburbs” of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding that Russia had deployed more battles. war from Russia to the Donbas.
Colonel Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said fighting across the Donbas had reached “maximum intensity”. He added, “The Russian invaders shelled the entire front line, trying to hit our deep defensive positions with artillery fire.”
Amid reports of Russian war crimes against civilians, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, has issued an appeal to residents of Russian-occupied territory but that they can flee to areas controlled by Ukraine, as millions have. It’s difficult and dangerous, she admits, but “in the end, it’s all about the safety of you and your children.”
A French journalist was killed Monday near Lysychansk when a shell exploded near the evacuation bus he was traveling in, according to Ukrainian and French officials, and his employer, the BFM television channel. TELEVISION. Journalist, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, was wounded by a shrapnel in the neck, Serhiy Haidai, governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, said the shell was fired by Russian troops.
At least seven other journalists were killed while covering the conflict, according to Reporters Without Borders.
The sheer weight of Russia’s military and the brutality of its tactics have yielded territorial gains in the east, but the country has suffered heavy losses, and Western analysts say they are lacking available resources.
“Russia may have suffered serious losses among its mid- and junior officers,” the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday. Latest intelligence update it was made public. The battalions that the Russians were assembling were “from the survivors in many less effective units.”
Perhaps most ominously for Moscow, the British cited “many credible reports of elements of localization among Russian forces.”
Hoping to spread out Russian forces more thinly than they already have, Ukraine over the weekend launched a counteroffensive more than 300 miles from Sievierodonetsk, aiming to retake Kherson, a strategic port on the lower Dnipro River in south-central Ukraine. . This was the first major city to fall to the Russiansless than a week after the invasion.
“Ukraine’s counteroffensive is unlikely to recapture significant territory in the near term,” the Institute for the Study of War in Washington said in a review released Sunday, but it would disrupt military operations. Russian operations throughout the south, “and potentially forcing Russia to deploy reinforcements to the Kherson area, which is mainly held by shoddy units.”
In Melitopol, the Kremlin-designated regional government said a car bomb had injured two aid workers, calling it “a terrorist attack aimed at destabilizing peaceful city life.” city”. Residents protested the occupation of Melitopol, where Russian forces kidnapped local officials and replaced them.
Ivan Fyodorov, mayor of Melitopol – who was kidnapped by the Russian army and then returned to Ukraine on a prisoner swap – said he did not know who was responsible for the bombing, but predicted that “the ground will burn” in Melitopol until the Russians leave the city.
Russian forces held most of the areas they had conquered in the south during the early part of the war. But a group of fighters held weekly meetings at a steel mill complex south of Mariupol, defeating significant Russian forces earlier. Survivors surrendered this month.
And in the first weeks of the war, Russian attacks to the north on Kyiv and Kharkiv, the second largest city, became hopelessly bogged down. Moscow abandoned those campaigns, at least temporarily, to focus on the Donbas, and the Ukrainians recaptured some of the lost territory.
The failure of those attacks and the resistance in Mariupol contributed to the shift of Russian tactics to a slower, more rigorous approach, without any apparent concern about civilian casualties. physical destruction or destruction.
Describing Sievierodonetsk under repeated shelling, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a video posted online Sunday night, “They don’t care how many lives they will have to pay.”
Matina Stevis-Gridneff reports from Brussels and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Report contributed by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Marc Santora from Krakow, Poland, Valerie Hopkins from Kyiv, Neil MacFarquhar from Istanbul, Cassandra Vinograd and Stanley Reed from London, Carlotta Gall from Druzhkivka, Ukraine, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, and Monika Proncczuk from Brussels.
May 31, 2022
An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to actions previously taken by the European Union against Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine. The EU has not banned Russian natural gas imports, but individual countries, including the United States, do.
