EU holds crisis talks on Russia gas supplies
GERMANY PREPARED TO BACK EMBARGO ON RUSSIAN OIL
The European Union is preparing a ban on Russian oil, with possible exemptions for wary countries, as EU energy ministers yesterday held crisis talks on Moscow’s demand that foreign buyers pay for gas in roubles or lose their supply.
The European Commission is expected to propose a sixth package of EU sanctions this week against Russia over its Ukraine offensive, including an embargo on buying oil.
Germany yesterday said it was prepared to back an immediate EU embargo on Russian oil, a major shift from Moscow’s biggest energy customer that could let Europe impose such a ban within days.
“Germany is not against an oil ban on Russia. Of course, it is a heavy load to bear but we would be ready to do that,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck said before talks with his EU colleagues in Brussels.
Hungary, Slovakia factor
Russia supplies 40 per cent of EU gas and 26 per cent of its oil imports. The Commission may offer Hungary and Slovakia an exemption with the overall ban likely to be phased in by the year-end, officials said.
Both Hungary and Slovakia are heavily dependent on Russian crude. Hungary has said it would oppose energy sanctions. EU energy ministers were also attempting to forge a joint response to Russia’s demand that countries effectively pay for gas in roubles, after Russia cut gas supply to Bulgaria and Poland last week for refusing to comply with its payment scheme.
Bulgaria and Poland already planned to stop using Russian gas this year and have said they can cope with the cut-off.
Evacuation of civilians from Mariupol under way
Meanwhile, the first civilians to be evacuated from a giant steel plant in Mariupol were expected to arrive later yesterday in the Ukrainianheld city of Zaporizhzhia after an overnight bus journey across the frontline.
Hundreds are still trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of resistance to the Russian siege. “Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed green corridor has started working,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The evacuation, if successful, would represent rare progress in easing the human cost of the almost 10-week war. Before the evacuation overseen by the UN and the Red Cross, about 1,000 civilians were believed to be in the steel plant, along with 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. As many as 100,000 people overall may still be in Mariupol.
Humanitarian organisations worked to evacuate more civilians from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol yesterday but hundreds of people remained trapped in the Azovstal steel works, the last stronghold of resistance to the Russian siege.
A first group of evacuees was due to arrive in a Ukrainianheld town northwest of Mariupol yesterday. But Russian forces resumed shelling the steel works on Sunday as soon as the buses had left the plant, a city official said.
People still stuck there were running out of water, food and medicine as Russian forces hemmed them into the industrial complex, whose network of bunkers and tunnels has provided shelter from weeks of Russian bombardment.
“The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
Intense Russian bombardments were also hitting towns in eastern Ukraine yesterday, causing severe damage, a regional governor said.
On the international front, EU energy ministers were due to hold emergency talks on Moscow’s demand that European buyers pay for Russian gas in roubles or face their supply being cut off.
While the EU has imposed heavy economic sanctions on Russia in response to its attack of Ukraine, the issue of Russian energy supplies has posed a dilemma that threatens to crack the united front.
Crushing resistance
The Russian military is now focusing on crushing resistance in Ukraine’s south and east after failing to capture Kyiv in the early weeks of the war, now in its third month.
Its assaults have flattened cities and forced more than 5 million to flee the country.
Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, has become emblematic of the war and the suffering of ordinary people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces are now in control of nearly all the city, linking up Russian-held territory to the west and east.
Around 100 civilians evacuated from the Azovstal steelworks were due to arrive in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia, 230km northwest of Mariupol, yesterday. “For the first time, we had two days of a ceasefire on this territory, and we managed to take out more than 100 civilians — women, children,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly video address.
Footage from inside the steelworks showed members of the Azov regiment helping civilians though rubble and on to a bus.
But hundreds remain trapped inside. One older evacuee accompanied by young children said survivors were running out of food. “Children always wanted to eat. You know, adults can wait,” she said.
Russia last week said it had decided against storming the steel works and would instead blockade it. But sporadic bombardments have continued.
“Yesterday, as soon as the buses left Azovstal with the evacuees, new shelling began immediately,” Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to the Mariupol mayor, told Ukrainian television.