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EU agrees Russia oil embargo, gives Hungary exemptions; Zelenskiy vows more sanctions

01 June 2022 02:43 (UTC +04:00)

European Union leaders have agreed an embargo on Russian crude oil imports that will take full effect by end-2022, but Hungary and two other landlocked Central European states secured exemptions for the pipeline imports they rely on, APA reports.

The ban, agreed overnight after weeks of wrangling, aims to halt 90% of Russia's crude imports into the 27-nation bloc by year-end.

It is the toughest sanction yet on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and one that will itself affect the EU, where energy prices have spiked and inflation is running at close to a double-digit clip.

Russia accounted for just over a quarter of EU oil imports in 2020, while Europe is the destination for nearly half of Russia's crude and petroleum product exports.

"The sanctions have one clear goal: To prompt Russia to end this war, to withdraw its troops, and to agree a sensible and fair peace with Ukraine," German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.

The oil embargo follows an earlier ban on Russian coal and allows the bloc to impose a sixth round of sanctions that includes cutting Russia's biggest bank, Sberbank , off from the SWIFT international transaction system.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that once the sixth round was in place "we'll immediately start preparing the seventh" round. He predicted the embargo would strip Russia of tens of billions of Euros.

"In the end there should be no meaningful economic relations left between the free world and the terrorist state," he said in a late night address on Tuesday.

Zelenskiy had earlier criticised what he called an "unacceptable" delay of more than 50 days since the EU's previous package.

French President Emmanuel Macron said nothing could be ruled out regarding further sanctions, although other leaders rejected the idea of banning purchases of Russian gas, on which Europe heavily depends.

EU countries will have six months to stop imports of seaborne Russian crude and eight months for refined products.

That timeline will start once the sanctions are formally adopted, which EU states aim to do this week.