BRUSSELS: European Union leaders agreed Monday to embargo most Russian oil imports into the bloc by year-end as part of new sanctions on Moscow worked out at a summit focused on helping Ukraine with a long-delayed package of new financial support.
The embargo covers Russian oil brought in by sea, allowing a temporary exemption for imports delivered by pipeline, a move that was crucial to bring landlocked Hungary on board a decision that required consensus.
EU Council President Charles Michel said the agreement covers more than two-thirds of oil imports from Russia. Ursula Von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive branch, said the punitive move will “effectively cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of the year.”
Michel said leaders also agreed to provide Ukraine with a 9 billion-euro ($9.7 billion) tranche of assistance to support the war-torn country’s economy. It was unclear whether the money would come in grants or loans.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, responded to the EU’s decision on Twitter, saying: “As she rightly said yesterday, Russia will find other importers.”
The new package of sanctions will also include an asset freeze and travel ban on individuals, while Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, will be excluded from SWIFT, the major global system for financial transfers from which the EU previously banned several smaller Russian banks. Three big Russian state-owned broadcasters will be prevented from distributing their content in the EU.
“We want to stop Russia’s war machine,” Michel said, lauding what he called a “remarkable achievement.”
“More than ever it’s important to show that we are able to be strong, that we are able to be firm, that we are able to be tough,” he added.
Michel said the new sanctions, which needed the support of all 27 member countries, will be legally endorsed by Wednesday.
The EU had already imposed five previous rounds of sanctions on Russia over its war. It has targeted more than 1,000 people individually, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and top government officials as well as pro-Kremlin oligarchs, banks, the coal sector and more.
But the sixth package of measures announced May 4 had been held up by concerns over oil supplies.
The impasse embarrassed the bloc, which was forced to scale down its ambitions to break Hungary’s resistance. When European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed the package, the initial aim was to phase out imports of crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of the year.
Both Michel and von der Leyen said leaders will soon return to the issue, seeking to guarantee that Russia’s pipeline oil exports to the EU are banned at a later date.
Hungarian Prime minister Viktor Orban had made clear he could support the new sanctions only if his country’s oil supply security was guaranteed. Hungary gets more than 60% of its oil from Russia and depends on crude that comes through the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline.
Von der Leyen had played down the chances of a breakthrough at the summit. But leaders reached a compromise after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged them to end “internal arguments that only prompt Russia to put more and more pressure on the whole of Europe.”
The EU gets about 40% of its natural gas and 25% of its oil from Russia, and divisions over the issue exposed the limits of the 27-nation trading bloc’s ambitions.
In his 10-minute video address, Zelenskyy told leaders to end “internal arguments that only prompt Russia to put more and more pressure on the whole of Europe.”
He said the sanctions package must “be agreed on, it needs to be effective, including (on) oil,” so that Moscow “feels the price for what it is doing against Ukraine” and the rest of Europe. Only then, Zelenskyy said, will Russia be forced to “start seeking peace.”
It was not the first time he had demanded that the EU target Russia’s lucrative energy sector and deprive Moscow of billions of dollars each day in supply payments.
But Hungary led a group of EU countries worried over the impact of the oil ban on their economy, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Hungary relies heavily on Russia for energy and can’t afford to turn off the pumps. In addition to its need for Russian oil, Hungary gets 85% of its natural gas from Russia.
Orban had been adamant on arriving at the summit in Brussels that a deal was not in sight, stressing that Hungary needed its energy supply secured.
Von der Leyen and Michel said the commitment by Germany and Poland to phase out Russian oil by the end of the year and to forgo oil from the northern part of the Druzhba pipeline will help cut 90% of Russian oil imports.
The issue of food security will be on the table Tuesday, with the leaders set to encourage their governments to speed up work on “solidarity lanes” to help Ukraine export grain and other produce.
Erdogan discusses Turkey's Syria incursion plans with Putin
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has discussed Ankara's planned military operation in northern Syria and the war in Ukraine with Russia's Vladimir Putin, Erdogan's office said Monday.
In recent days Erdogan has said Turkey will launch a cross-border incursion against Kurdish militants in Syria to create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) deep buffer zone.
He told Putin in a phone call that the frontier zone was agreed in 2019 but had not been implemented, the Turkish presidency said.
Ankara carried out an operation against the People's Protection Units, or YPG, in October 2019.
Russia, the Syrian regime and the United States also have troops in the border region.
Turkey consider the YPG to be a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
However, the YPG forms the backbone of US-led forces in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
The US has not been happy with Turkey's previous incursions into Syria.
Erdogan also told Putin that Turkey was ready to resume a role in ending the war in Ukraine, including taking part in a possible "observation mechanism" between Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations, the statement said.
Negotiations in Istanbul held in March failed to make any headway but Turkey, which has close ties to both Kyiv and Moscow, has repeatedly put itself forward as a possible mediator.
The Turkish president also called for peace in Ukraine as soon as possible and for confidence-building steps to be taken.
In Washington, the National Security Council said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had called Ibrahim Kalin, chief adviser to Erdogan, to discuss the two nations' support for Ukraine, but also to voice caution about actions in Syria.
Sullivan "reiterated the importance of refraining from escalation in Syria to preserve existing ceasefire lines and avoid any further destabilization," said Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the National Security Council.
Russian, Ukrainian troops fight block by block in key city
Russian troops pushed farther into a key eastern Ukrainian city and fought street by street with Kyiv's forces Monday in a battle the mayor said has left the city "completely ruined" and driven tends of thousands from their homes.
Military analysts painted the battle as part of a race against time for the Kremlin, which they said wants to complete its capture of the industrial Donbas region before more Western arms arrive to bolster Ukraine's defences.
Weapons from the West have already helped Kyiv's forces thwart a Russian advance on the capital in the early weeks of the war.
That failure forced Moscow to withdraw, regroup, and pursue a more limited objective of seizing the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists already held swaths of territory and have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years.
In recent days, the fighting has focused on Sievierodonetsk in a battle Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called "indescribably difficult."
Relentless Russian artillery barrages have destroyed critical infrastructure and damaged 90% of the buildings, and power and communications have been largely cut to a city that was once home to 100,000 people.
"The number of victims is rising every hour, but we are unable to count the dead and the wounded amid the street fighting," Mayor Oleksandr Striuk told The Associated Press in a phone interview, adding that Moscow's troops advanced a few more blocks toward the city center.
"The city has been completely ruined," he added, and only about 12,000 to 13,000 residents remain, sheltering in basements and bunkers to escape the Russian bombardment, a situation that recalls the siege of Mariupol that trapped residents and led to some of the worst suffering of the war.
While tens of thousands are believed to have died in Mariupol, Striuk estimated that 1,500 civilians have died in his city since the war began, from Russian attacks as well as from the dire conditions, including a lack of medicine or medical treatment.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces reinforced their positions on the northeastern and southeastern outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of the Russian border in an area that is the last pocket of Ukrainian government control in Luhansk province.
Luhansk Gov. Serhiy Haidai said the Russians were also pushing toward nearby Lysychansk.
He said two civilians were killed and another five were wounded in the latest Russian shelling.
Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk sit on either side of the strategically important Siverskiy Donetsk River.
The Russian advance in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk is part of an all-out push, executed without regard for personnel and equipment losses, said Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov.
"There is an impression that Russia has set the goal to seize Donbas at any cost," said Zhdanov.
"The Kremlin has reckoned that it can't afford to waste time and should use the last chance to extend the separatist-controlled territory because the arrival of Western weapons in Ukraine could make it impossible."
The Ukrainians hope they can hold the Russians off long enough for them to run out of steam, or for more Western weapons to arrive.
But Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military expert at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank, said those are taking a long time to arrive, given the Russians an opening.
Russian pressure also continued in the south on Monday.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said an artillery strike on a shipyard in the southern port of Mykolaiv destroyed Ukrainian armored vehicles parked there.
In the Kherson region, the Russia-installed deputy head of the regional administration, Kirill Stremousov, told Russia's Tass state news agency that grain from last year's harvest is being delivered to Russian buyers, adding that "obviously there is a lot of grain here."
Ukraine has accused Russia of looting grain from territories its forces hold, and the U.S. has alleged Moscow is jeopardizing global food supplies by preventing Ukraine from exporting its harvest.
Zelenskyy was set to address a gathering of European Union leaders later Monday, as they sought to show their solidarity with Ukraine despite divisions over whether to target Russian oil in a new series of sanctions.
The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly demanded that the EU target Russia's lucrative energy sector and deprive Moscow of billions of dollars each day in supply payments.
(With PTI Inputs)