European Union countries must ban insuring Russian seaborne oil in the coming days to cut money flows further to Moscow for its war against Ukraine, a senior economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday.
Oleg Ustenko spoke as the EU’s executive European Commission is expected to present its proposal on the next package of sanctions against Russia later in the day to the EU 27 member states’ national envoys meeting in Brussels.
EU countries need unanimity to impose sanctions and Hungary – where Prime Minister Viktor Orban cultivates close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin – has been their loudest critic inside the bloc, which is split on the oil price cap.
“The main goal is to cut off Putin’s regime from any sorts of revenue from fossil fuels,” Ustenko told reporters, adding the oil price cap meant to match that already agreed by the G7 most industrialised countries was “extremely important” and should be approved as soon as possible.
“If you are doing nothing it means you are just prolonging this war with Ukraine, this is just ridiculous, the whole civilised world has to be united on that.”
While the EU already agreed to stop importing Russian oil starting later this year, Ustenko said the “blood money” would keep on flowing to Moscow unless European companies are banned from insuring seaborne shipments.
He hoped Hungary would eventually change tack, and that the shipping EU countries Greece, Malta and Cyprus would also be on board with further measures hitting Russian oil revenues.
“A friend in need is a friend indeed,” he said.
The EU was spurred into action after Putin announced partial military mobilisation last week for his war in Ukraine and issued a nuclear threat to the West.
On Wednesday, Moscow was poised to annex a swath of Ukraine
217 days after invading by land, air and sea the country, which used to be a Soviet republic under Russian rule but now wants to join the European Union and integrate with the West.
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