LEU leaders will try to overcome Hungary’s rejection of an embargo on Russian oil on Monday, as part of a new tightening of sanctions against Moscow, whose forces are advancing in eastern Ukraine, with fighting in the heart of the key city of Severodonetsk.
During a summit devoted to Ukraine, the leaders of the Twenty-Seven were to consider a sixth part of sanctions supposed to strangle the Russian economy, after a videoconference intervention by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The latter continues to demand this embargo, calling on Westerners to deprive Russia of the revenues that allow it to finance its invasion of Ukraine, launched on February 24.
They should in particular rediscuss a plan for a gradual embargo on Russian oil, which has so far been blocked by Hungary. On his arrival in Brussels, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday that there was “no compromise” acceptable “for the moment” on the subject.
But a new compromise proposal was to be discussed, providing for an embargo by the end of the year “with a temporary exemption for pipeline crude”, designed to lift the Hungarian veto.
Only Russian oil transported to the EU by boat – ie two-thirds of European purchases of Russian oil – would be affected by this embargo in the immediate future.
So far, Hungary, a landlocked country without access to the sea and which depends for 65% of its consumption on Russian oil transported by the Druzhba pipeline, opposes any embargo unless it benefits from an exemption from at least less than four years to prepare for it and nearly 800 million euros in European funding to adapt its refineries.
In addition to the oil embargo, the sixth package of sanctions, which requires the unanimity of the 27 to enter into force, aims to exclude the largest Russian bank, Sberbank (37% of the Russian market), and two other banking establishments of the Swift international financial system, as well as an extension of the EU blacklist to around 60 personalities.
European leaders must also discuss the need to ensure liquidity for Ukraine to keep its economy functioning — the Commission has proposed aid of up to 9 billion euros in 2022 — and food security , due in particular to the blocking of Ukrainian cereal exports which raises fears of a crisis on the African continent.
French journalist killed
The summit comes as Russian forces advance in eastern Ukraine. Russian and Ukrainian forces clashed in particular on Monday in the heart of Severodonetsk, according to the governor of this region of Donbass.
Severodonetsk and the neighboring city of Lyssytchansk are key cities in Donbass still under Ukrainian control. Russian forces aim to fully control this mining basin, which pro-Russian separatist forces backed by Moscow took partial control of in 2014.
It was in this area that a French journalist, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, who worked for the BFMTV channel died on Monday, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Twitter.
He “was in Ukraine to show the reality of the war. On board a humanitarian bus, alongside civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally injured,” Macron said, confirming information of the governor of this region, Serguiï Gaïdaï.
Paris quickly “demanded” a “transparent investigation” into the death of the French journalist “as soon as possible”, according to the head of French diplomacy Catherine Colonna.
Russian forces have been trying to surround Severodonetsk and take control of it for several weeks, in an offensive that has intensified in recent days, in the face of which President Zelensky admitted that the Ukrainian army was in difficulty.
“The Russians are advancing towards the middle of Severodonetsk. The fighting continues, the situation is very difficult,” Gaidai said on Telegram.
He added that the road linking Severodonetsk to Lysytchansk, then to that of Bakhmout further south, was too “dangerous” to allow the evacuation of civilians and the transport of humanitarian aid.
Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south
Ukrainian forces have nevertheless claimed to regain ground in the south, particularly in the region around Kherson, a city near Crimea which came under Russian control in early March.
In its point published in the night from Sunday to Monday, the Ukrainian army claims in particular to progress near Bilogirka, about a hundred kilometers north of Kherson.
Moscow did not confirm this information, but on Monday mentioned fighting in this region, indicating that it had destroyed Ukrainian military equipment with artillery fire on Mykolaiv, and destroyed Ukrainian rockets in flight near Chornobaivka, about fifteen kilometers northwest of Kherson.
The new pro-Russian authorities of this city at the mouth of the Dnieper River have already expressed the wish to be attached to Russia, which has announced that it will issue residents with a Russian passport via “a simplified procedure”.
In Melitopol, another city in southern Ukraine occupied by the Russians, in the region of Zaporijjia, the pro-Russian administration reported that a car bomb had exploded on Monday morning, injuring two people.
The new mayor of the city installed by Moscow denounced “a cynical terrorist act of the kyiv regime”, which “cannot be done with the idea that the inhabitants of Melitopol no longer want to have to do” in kyiv.
No rocket launchers that can reach Russia
In this context, the new French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, went to Ukraine on Monday, the first visit by a French official of this level since the start of the conflict.
France “will continue and strengthen” its arms deliveries to Ukraine, she announced from kyiv, after a visit to Boutcha, a town on the outskirts of kyiv that has become a symbol of the massacres of civilians attributed by kyiv to Russian forces. .
President Emmanuel Macron had already announced at the end of April the sending of military equipment to kyiv, in particular Caesar self-propelled guns.
These guns “have proven to be reliable and effective weapons”, declared the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba alongside Ms Colonna. “These are not the only weapons arriving from France and for each weapon we are grateful,” he added.
For weeks, kyiv has been calling for new deliveries of weapons from the West to deal with the Russian offensive, in particular planes and multiple rocket launchers.
US President Joe Biden nevertheless told reporters on Monday that the United States was “not going to send rocket systems to Ukraine that could reach Russia”. Such deliveries had been mentioned in recent weeks, but never confirmed.
On the other hand, the deputy head of NATO, Mircea Geoana, estimated on Sunday that the Alliance was no longer bound by its old commitments to Moscow not to deploy its forces in Eastern Europe.
In the Founding Act on relations between NATO and Russia, signed 25 years ago, the Russians had “undertaken not to attack the neighbors, that is what they are doing, and to hold regular consultations with NATO, which they do not do,” Geoana said.
NATO now has “no restrictions” to adopt a “robust posture on the eastern flank”, he added.
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05/30/2022 18:11:58 – Brussels (AFP) – © 2022 AFP