KYIV, Ukraine — In its biggest step yet to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels, the European Union proposed a plan Wednesday to phase in an embargo on Russian oil to sever a major source of revenue for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
The proposal came after a night in which Russian forces hammered the eastern part of the country and also struck the west in a possible attempt to disrupt Western aid — including weapons — trickling into Ukraine, which Moscow says is a legitimate target. Efforts are also still underway to rescue civilians from the devastated city of Mariupol in the south.
Any move by the EU to halt Russian oil imports would take months to complete as the 27-nation bloc tries to secure alternative supplies of energy. Also, the ban could have holes in the form of exemptions for member states Slovakia and Hungary, which say they are too reliant on Russian oil to support a boycott.
And the proposed ban does not include Russian gas, which the EU buys in greater quantities than oil and relies on more heavily for heating, cooking and industry. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, and other major EU countries have balked at cutting off Russian gas.
Still, sanctions on Russian oil could significantly hamper Moscow’s ability to diversify its economy and modernize. The EU, Russia’s biggest customer for fossil fuels, is estimated to have paid more than $55 billion for Russian oil, gas and coal since Ukraine was invaded Feb. 24, according to the Helsinki-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
The oil embargo would almost certainly raise prices and inflict pain on consumers in the EU. The proposal is likely to be subject to a fierce debate among EU leaders before they decide whether to adopt it.
Advocates say a ban is necessary to help save Ukraine from destruction.
“Let’s be clear: It will not be easy because some member states are strongly dependent on Russian oil. But we simply have to do it,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
The U.S., a much smaller customer, banned Russian oil and gas imports in March.
The proposed European ban was met with skepticism by Vladimir Dzhabarov, a Russian politician and statesman, who said EU leaders “have gone a little crazy” and suggested that Russia could circumvent sanctions by selling oil through other countries.
“You will still buy it, only through third countries. Our oil is the same, only more expensive,” he told Russian state media, according to the BBC.
Russian troops continue to pummel eastern Ukraine, in the industrial Donbas region, where they have turned the bulk of their attention. But the relative calm in the west was broken Tuesday night by what appeared to be attacks on infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said.
Parts of the city of Lviv near the Polish border — a major conduit for military supplies from the West — were without power after Russian strikes knocked out electrical substations. Other missiles reportedly targeted the city’s rail network. One person was injured and water supplies were disrupted after the attack, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Twitter.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu warned Wednesday that any shipments of arms from the West into Ukraine were legitimate targets.
“Any NATO transports carrying weapons or resources for the Ukrainian military that arrives in the country’s territory will be seen by us as a legitimate target to be destroyed,” Shoigu said.
The head of Ukraine’s national railways, Oleksandr Kamyshin, said on the messaging app Telegram that overnight missile strikes had hit six railway stations and rail facilities in central and western Ukraine, causing “severe infrastructure damage.”
The strike on Lviv took place hundreds of miles from the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has consolidated forces after a retreat from the capital, Kyiv.
Twenty-one civilians were killed and 27 injured in the Donetsk region, regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. Among the dead were 10 people killed at a coking plant in the town of Avdiivka. The claim could not be independently verified.
Kyrylenko said civilians continued to be evacuated from the besieged port city of Mariupol on Wednesday with the help of the International Red Cross and the United Nations, though he did not say how many.
The evacuees are believed to be among the last holdouts living alongside Ukrainian soldiers in desperate conditions at the Azovstal steelworks, which has come under weeks of relentless Russian shelling.
In another sign of the intensifying campaign in the east, British military intelligence said Russia had deployed 22 battalion tactical groups near the city of Izium, about 75 miles southeast of the heavily bombarded city of Kharkiv, to stage an attack on the nearby cities of Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk.
“Capturing these cities would consolidate Russian military control of the northeastern Donbas and provide a staging point for their efforts to cut off Ukrainian forces in the region,” the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily assessment.
In another troubling development for Ukraine, neighboring Belarus launched military drills Wednesday to test its combat readiness, news reports said. Belarus, an ally of Russia, said the exercises posed no threat to its neighbors or the rest of Europe.
The proposed embargo on Russian oil would mark the sixth set of EU sanctions imposed on Moscow. The EU also plans to remove Russian banks — including its largest, Sberbank — from the Swift global financial messaging network, ban three Russian broadcasters and sanction high-ranking military officers suspected of war crimes in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and Mariupol. Mass graves have been detected in both places.
“We know who you are and we will hold you accountable,” Von der Leyen said.
____
(King reported from Kyiv and Pierson from Singapore.)
