EU set to unveil sanctions on Russian oil as fighting rages in Ukraine
(Reuters) - The European Union is expected to outline oil sanctions against Russia on Wednesday as its forces pounded targets in eastern Ukraine, unleashing rockets on a steel plant that is the last redoubt of resistance in the port city of Mariupol.
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine, May 4 (Reuters) - The European Union is expected to outline oil sanctions against Russia on Wednesday as its forces pounded targets in eastern Ukraine, unleashing rockets on a steel plant that is the last redoubt of resistance in the port city of Mariupol.
Scores of evacuees who managed to leave the city under U.N. and Red Cross auspices reached the relative safety of Ukraine-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday after cowering for weeks in bunkers beneath the sprawling Azovstal steel plant. read more
Weary-looking evacuees, including children and old people, clambered off buses after escaping the ruins of their home town in southeastern Ukraine where Russia now claims control.
"We had said goodbye to life. We didn't think anyone knew we were there," said Valentina Sytnykova, 70, who said she sheltered in the plant for two months with her son and 10-year-old granddaughter.
Russia is targeting Mariupol as it seeks to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and connect Russian-controlled territory in the south and east. Parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk were held by Russian-backed separatists before President Vladimir Putin launched the Feb. 24 invasion. More than 200 civilians remain in the plant, according to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, with 100,000 civilians still in the city. "Where am I to go? Let them blow me up here," a 67-year-old woman told Reuters in the city, as she boiled water on an open fire amid the rubble of a destroyed apartment block.
Pummelled by Western sanctions, Russia now faces new measures from the EU that would target its banks and oil industry - a major step for European countries that rely heavily on Russian energy.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to spell out the proposed new sanctions on Wednesday, including a ban on imports of Russian oil by the end of this year.