EU to announce sanctions on Russian oil as fighting in Ukraine intensifies

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine, May 4 (Reuters) – The European Union is expected to outline oil sanctions against Russia on Wednesday as its forces strike targets in eastern Ukraine, firing rockets at a steel plant that is the last pocket of resistance in the city. Mariupol port.

Dozens of evacuees who made it out of the city under UN and Red Cross auspices arrived in the relative safety of Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday after hiding for weeks in bunkers beneath the Azovstal steel plant. read more

Tired-looking evacuees, including children and the elderly, stepped off buses after fleeing the ruins of their hometown 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 at the plant for two months with her 10-year-old son and granddaughter.

Russia is targeting Mariupol as it seeks to separate Ukraine from the Black Sea and connect Russian-controlled territory to the south and east. Parts of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions were in the hands of Russian-backed separatists before President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on February 24.

More than 200 civilians remain at the plant, according to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, with 100,000 civilians still in the city. read more

“Where am I going to go? Blow me up here,” a 67-year-old woman in the city told Reuters as she boiled water on an open fire amid the rubble of a destroyed apartment block.

Hit by Western sanctions, Russia now faces new EU measures that would target its banks and oil industry, an important step for European countries heavily dependent on Russian energy.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to explain the proposed new sanctions on Wednesday, including a ban on Russian oil imports by the end of this year. read more

Russia showed no sign of backing down from nearly 10 weeks in what it calls a “special military operation,” a war that has killed thousands, destroyed cities and driven 5 million Ukrainians to flee abroad. Russia’s own economy, valued at $1.8 trillion, is headed for its biggest contraction since the years after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.

Putin raised the economic stakes for kyiv’s Western backers by announcing plans to block exports of vital raw materials. read more

Russian forces have directed their greatest firepower against eastern and southern Ukraine after failing to take kyiv, the capital, in the first weeks of the war.

But there were also new attacks in the west on Tuesday. Lviv’s mayor said Russian missile strikes damaged water and electricity networks in the city near the Polish border, through which Western arms supplies flow to Ukraine’s military.

Russian forces also attacked six railway stations in the center and west of the country, Ukraine’s railway chief Olesksandr Kamyshin said. There were no civilian injuries, he added on Twitter.

In the east, Russian strikes in Donetsk on Tuesday killed 21 civilians and wounded 27, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

Attacks and shelling also intensified in Luhansk, with Popasna being the most difficult area, where it was impossible to organize evacuations, regional governor Serhiy Haida said.

“There are no safe cities in the Luhansk region,” he said on the Telegram messaging service.

In a daily update on the conflict zone, British military intelligence said Russia has deployed 22 battalion tactical groups near the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium in an effort to advance along the northern axis of the war. Donbas region, adding that Russian forces are likely to intend to capture the cities of Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces had repelled an attempted Russian advance through Dovgenke, some 108 kilometers (67 miles) east of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

In the south, Russia said it had attacked a military airfield near the Black Sea port of Odessa with missiles, destroying Western-supplied drones, weapons and ammunition. Ukraine said three missiles targeted the Odessa region and all were intercepted.

Adding to Ukraine’s concerns, neighboring Belarus, a close ally of Russia, said on Wednesday it had begun sudden large-scale military exercises to test combat readiness. read more

Mariupol, a city of 400,000 before the invasion, has seen the bloodiest of fighting, enduring weeks of siege and shelling.

A ceasefire was broken with some civilians still trapped in bunkers below the steelworks despite a UN-brokered evacuation.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of violating agreements to stop the fighting and allow civilians to escape.

“They are still fighting. They are still bombing and shooting,” Zelenskiy said via video link at a Wall Street Journal event. “We need a break.”

US President Joe Biden used a visit to a Lockheed Martin defense plant to pressure the US Congress to pass his proposed $33 billion assistance package for Ukraine, which includes more than $20 billion in military aid.

“If you don’t stand up to dictators, history has shown us they keep coming, they keep coming,” Biden told plant workers in Alabama. read more

Britain announced additional aid of 300 million pounds ($375 million).

Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Tom Balmforth in Kyiv, Ron Popeski in Winnipeg, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Steve Holland in Troy, Alabama; Written by Doina Chiacu and Stephen Coates; Edited by Simon Cameron-Moore

Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.