Kyiv (dpa-AFX) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj thanked the EU for the sixth sanctions package in the wake of the Russian war of aggression and at the same time called for new punitive measures. A seventh package is needed once the steps in the sixth package are implemented, he said in his video address released Tuesday night. “Ultimately, there should be no significant economic ties between the free world and the terrorist state,” he said. “We will work on new restrictions against Russia for this war.”
Thanks to the EU’s planned oil boycott, Russia will lose “tens of billions of euros” that can no longer be used to finance terrorism. Going without Russian oil will also help the transition to renewable energies in the European Union, Zelensky said. Russia, on the other hand, will lose overall economically and will continue to be isolated.
After weeks of discussions at a summit in Brussels, the EU countries agreed on an extensive boycott of oil supplies from Russia. This is part of the sixth package of sanctions, further details of which are to be worked out in Brussels on Wednesday. The package could then be formally approved. Then further sanctions would come into force. It is planned to exclude the largest Russian bank Sberbank from the communication network Swift. In addition, the state television news channel Rossiya 24 and the state channels RTR Planeta and TV Center are to be banned in the EU.
In his nightly speech, Zelenskyi welcomed the penalties against Russia. He also pointed to the successes of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Kharkiv regions in the east and Zaporizhia in the south. There are also “certain successes” in the Cherson region, which Russian troops have occupied.
Despite the technical and manpower superiority of the Russian army, the Ukrainian armed forces remained “in charge of the situation” at the front. He called on the Ukrainians not only to look at where the situation was difficult. The picture at the front is rather complex. During a visit to the Kharkiv region on Sunday, Zelenskyi was informed that 31 percent of the region there was still occupied by Russian occupiers. Five percent have already been freed./mau/DP/he