EU chief proposes ‘orderly’ Russian oil import ban

UKRAINE:

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday said the EU would impose a gradual Russian oil ban in retaliation for the war in Ukraine.

“We will make sure that we phase out Russian oil in an orderly fashion,” von der Leyen said in speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg as she presented a sixth package of sanctions against Moscow to deny funding to the war effort against Ukraine.

Von der Leyen also said the EU would ask that the bloc’s 27 member states to deny Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, access to SWIFT, the global banking communications system.