Hungary objects to EU oil ban plan

The European Commission has proposed a ban within the year on Russian oil imports in its toughest move yet over the invasion of Ukraine, as Moscow said it was offering a new ceasefire to evacuate a steel plant in devastated Mariupol.

The EU also pledged to “significantly increase” its support for Ukraine’s neighbour Moldova, which has seen a series of attacks in a Moscowbacked separatist region, sparking fears the conflict could spread.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) on Thursday said the bloc would “phase out Russian supply of crude oil within six months, and refined products by the end of the year”.

If approved, the oil ban would be the EU’s strongest move yet against Russia’s strategic energy sector, which helps the Kremlin finance its war, but will still not touch its huge gas exports.

But, within hours, Hungary – whose populist leader Viktor Orban is one of Putin’s few EU partners – said it could not support the plan “in this form”, as it would “completely destroy” the security of its energy supply.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hit back that EU countries blocking an oil embargo would be “complicit” in Russia’s crimes in Ukraine.

The EU is also mulling moves against Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank.

After failing to sack Kyiv, Russia’s more than two-month military campaign has shifted to seeking to unite separatist pro-Russian areas in the east with Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.

The strategic southern port of Mariupol has become an emblem of the suffering of the war, with an untold number of dead and basic supplies cut off as Moscow carried out a scorched-earth campaign to wrest control.

The last Ukrainian soldiers are holding out at the Azovstal steelworks, where Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said there was heavy fighting on Thursday.