KYIV\/BRUSSELS
\nThe European Union proposed its toughest sanctions yet against Russia on Wednesday, including a phased oil embargo, as Kyiv said Moscow was intensifying an offensive in eastern Ukraine and close Russian ally Belarus announced large-scale army drills.
\nNearly 10 weeks into a war that has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and flattened Ukrainian cities, Russia was intensifying its assault, Ukraine\u2019s defence ministry said, with nearly 50 air strikes carried out on Tuesday alone.
\nRussia also stepped up strikes on targets in western Ukraine, saying it was disrupting Western arms deliveries.
\nA new convoy of buses began evacuating more civilians from the ravaged southeastern port city of Mariupol, which has seen the heaviest fighting of the war so far and where Moscow said remaining Ukrainian forces remained tightly blockaded.
\nPiling pressure on Russia\u2019s already battered $1.8 trillion economy, the European Commission proposed phasing out imports of Russian crude oil within six months and refined products by the end of this year, sending the price of Brent crude up by as much as 4%.
\n\u201c(President Vladimir) Putin must pay a price, a high price, for his brutal aggression,\u201d Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told applauding EU lawmakers in Strasbourg.
\nThe plan, if agreed by all 27 EU governments, would echo steps taken by the United States and Britain and be a watershed for the world\u2019s largest trading bloc, which remains dependent on Russian energy and must find alternative supplies.
\nUS President Joe Biden said he would speak to other leaders of the Group of Seven advanced economies this week about possible additional sanctions against Moscow. \u201cWe\u2019re always open to additional sanctions,\u201d Biden told reporters in Washington.
\nUkraine\u2019s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the news from Brussels, but renewed Kyiv\u2019s plea for more aggressive steps to starve Russia\u2019s war machine.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, we welcome that, but for six more months the EU countries will pay Russia billions of euros that will be invested in the Russian war machine,\u201d he told Austrian TV channel Puls 4 in an interview.
\n\u201cMy position is simple: every euro paid to Russia for gas, oil or other goods ends up as rounds of ammunition in Ukraine to kill my compatriots,\u201d he said, while calling for modern tanks and multiple launch rocket systems to protect territory.
\nThe EU plan, which also targets Russia\u2019s top bank, its broadcasters, and hundreds more individuals, is not a done deal, with the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia all seeking time to adapt. EU envoys were expected to move closer to agreement when they meet again on Thursday.
\nThe EU has yet to target Russian natural gas, used to heat homes and generate electricity across the bloc, and harder to replace than Russian crude.
\nThe Kremlin said Russia was weighing various responses to the EU plans, adding that the sanctions would increase costs for European citizens.
\n\u2018We are ready\u2019
\nOn the war front, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu renewed a warning that Moscow would seek to hit shipments of weapons into Ukraine by the United States and its NATO allies.
\nThe Russian defence ministry said its forces disabled six railway stations used to supply Western arms to Ukraine\u2019s soldiers in the east. It said they also hit 40 military targets including four depots storing ammunition and artillery. Read full story
\nUkraine\u2019s defence ministry said Russian strategic bombers fired 18 rockets \u201cwith the aim of damaging our country\u2019s transport infrastructure.\u201d
\nRussia published what it said was video footage of two Kalibr cruise missiles being launched from the Black Sea and said they hit unspecified ground targets in Ukraine.
\nAnnouncing surprise military drills, Belarus\u2019s defence ministry said they posed no threat to neighbours, but Ukraine\u2019s border service said it could not rule out that Belarusian forces might join Russia\u2019s assault.
\n\u201cTherefore, we are ready,\u201d spokesman Andriy Demchenko said.
\nSome Russian forces entered Ukraine via Belarus when the invasion began on Feb. 24 but so far no Belarusian troops have been involved in what Moscow calls a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d to disarm Ukraine and defend its Russian-speaking population from fascists.
\nKyiv and its Western supporters say Moscow\u2019s fascism claim is an absurd pretext for an unprovoked war of aggression that has driven more than five million Ukrainians to flee abroad.
\nThe Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed speculation Putin would formally declare war on Ukraine and decree a national mobilisation on May 9, when Russia commemorates the Soviet Union\u2019s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. Putin is due to deliver a speech and oversee a military parade in Moscow\u2019s Red Square.
\n\u2018We are not afraid\u2019
\nThe convoy leaving Mariupol, organised by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, was heading for the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
\nHe did not say whether any more civilians had been evacuated from the Azovstal steel works, where the city\u2019s last defenders are holding out against Russian forces that have seized Mariupol.
\nThe first evacuees from Azovstal arrived by bus in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday after cowering for weeks in bunkers beneath the sprawling Soviet-era complex. Read full story
\nMariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko reported heavy fighting at Azovstal on Wednesday and said contact with Ukrainian fighters there had been lost. More than 30 children were among trapped civilians awaiting evacuation, he added.
\nRussia now claims control of Mariupol, once a city of 400,000 but largely reduced to smoking rubble after weeks of siege and shelling. It is key to Moscow\u2019s efforts to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea \u2014 vital for grain and metals exports \u2014 and link Russian-controlled territory in the south and east.
\nThe southern coastline is, alongside the eastern Donbas region, Moscow\u2019s key target after its troops failed to take Kyiv, the capital, in the weeks after it invaded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV\/BRUSSELS The European Union proposed its toughest sanctions yet against Russia on Wednesday, including a phased oil embargo, as Kyiv said Moscow was intensifying an offensive in eastern Ukraine and close Russian ally Belarus announced large-scale army drills. Nearly 10 weeks into a war that has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and flattened Ukrainian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258757,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[337,3501,3212,456],"class_list":{"0":"post-258727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-ban","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-russian","11":"tag-ukraine"},"yoast_head":"\n