Efforts to increase economic pressure on Russia come amid hopes of more evacuations from the besieged city of Mariupol, and the United States has warned that Moscow is preparing to formally annex the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to the east of the country. “Reports indicate that Russia plans to hold referendums as soon as it joins sometime in mid-May,” said Michael Carpenter, the US ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, on Monday. He said Russia was considering a similar plan in a third region, Kherson, where Moscow had recently consolidated control and imposed the use of its currency in rubles. The European Commission is expected to propose a sixth package of EU sanctions this week against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, including a possible embargo on the Russian oil market. Kyiv says Russia’s energy exports to Europe, which have so far been largely exempt from international sanctions, are financing the Kremlin’s military effort with millions of euros a day. “This package should include clear steps to block Russia’s energy revenues,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video overnight speech Monday. Germany said Monday it was ready to support an immediate EU embargo on Russian oil. “We have managed to reach a situation where Germany can impose an oil embargo,” said German Economy Minister Robert Hubeck. Chancellor Olaf Solz, who has been more cautious than other Western leaders in supporting Ukraine, is under increasing pressure to follow a more stable line. Solz promised that the sanctions would not be lifted until Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a peace agreement with Ukraine that Kyiv could support, he said in an interview with public television ZDF. Weaning Europe from Russian oil is likely to be easier than reducing its dependence on Russian gas. Moscow has asked European customers to pay for gas in rubles, which the EU rejects. Last week, Moscow cut off supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. EU ministers meeting on Monday warned that full compliance with Moscow’s demand for gas payments in rubles would violate existing EU sanctions. Ambassadors from EU countries will discuss proposed oil sanctions when they meet. Wednesday. The moves came as Zelensky said the evacuation effort in Mariupol was continuing and he expected more people to be evacuated via humanitarian corridors on Tuesday from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Vasilivka. Mariupol City Council said evacuations would resume at 7 a.m. local time (04:00 GMT) on Tuesday. Hundreds remain trapped in underground shelters and tunnels beneath the vast Azovstal industrial area – the last stronghold of resistance to the Russian siege of the devastated southern port city – which Moscow forces resumed bombing at night. Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST “The situation has become a sign of a real humanitarian catastrophe,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, as stocks of water, food and medicine were running low. Some evacuees were initially relocated to a village held by Moscow-backed separatists, but were later allowed to continue on Ukrainian-occupied territory if they wished. However, while the head of the Donetsk military administration said that more evacuations under a UN / Red Cross plan were to begin on Monday morning, by late afternoon the buses had not reached the agreed pick-up point. Speaking earlier from the Russian-controlled city of Bezimenne, Natalia Usmanova, 37, said after leaving the steelworks that she became hysterical every time the shelter began to tremble. “I was so worried he might give up – I was terrified,” he told Reuters, recalling the widespread terror and lack of oxygen underground. map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine Mariupol, which is almost entirely controlled by Russian forces, is a key target because capturing it would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, open a land corridor to Crimea, which Moscow occupied from Ukraine in 2014. , and will release troops for what has become the main focus of the invasion: gaining full control of the eastern Donbass region. Ukraine announced on Monday that it had officially closed the Black and Azov ports of Kherson, Mariupol, Berdyansk and Skadovsk, which have been occupied by Russian forces. The World Food Program said about 4.5 million tonnes of grain had been stranded in Ukrainian ports. In other developments:
Russia continued to hit targets far from the front line with missiles. A 14-year-old boy was killed and a 17-year-old girl was injured in a rocket attack in the southern port of Odessa when a rocket hit a dormitory, Zelenski said. The Russian Defense Ministry said a rocket attack on a military airport near Odessa destroyed a runway and a weapons and ammunition depot supplied by Western forces. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the death toll in Ukraine has risen to more than 3,000 since February 24. Boris Johnson is expected to hail Ukraine’s resistance to tyranny as a model for the world, as he delivers a virtual speech to the country’s parliament on Tuesday. Johnson will be the first world leader to speak to the Verkhovna Rada since the conflict began. Britain said Monday it would provide an additional 300 300m ($ 375m) in military aid to Ukraine, including electronic warfare equipment and an anti-battery radar system.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
