Ukraine yesterday welcomed a US$60 price cap on Russian oil agreed by the EU, G7 and Australia, saying it would “destroy” Russia’s economy.
The price cap, previously negotiated on a political level between G7 nations and the EU, is to come into effect with an EU embargo on Russian crude oil from tomorrow.
Poland had refused to back the price cap plan over concerns the ceiling was too high, before its ambassador to the EU confirmed Warsaw’s agreement on Friday evening.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The embargo would prevent shipments of Russian crude by tanker vessel to the EU, which account for two-thirds of imports, potentially depriving Russia’s war chest of billions of euros.
“We always achieve our goal and Russia’s economy will be destroyed, and it will pay and be responsible for all its crimes,” Ukrainian Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram yesterday.
However, a cap of “US$30 would have destroyed it more quickly,” he added.
The G7 said it was delivering on its vow “to prevent Russia from profiting from its war of aggression against Ukraine, to support stability in global energy markets and to minimize negative economic spillovers of Russia’s war of aggression.”
The White House described the deal as “welcome news,” saying a price cap would help limit Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to fund the Kremlin’s “war machine.”
After humiliating defeats during what has become the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia began targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure in October, causing sweeping blackouts.
Putin said Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure were “inevitable,” in his first conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz since mid-September.
“Such measures have become a forced and inevitable response to Kyiv’s provocative attacks on Russia’s civilian infrastructure,” Putin told Scholz, a Kremlin readout of the telephone talks showed.
During the hour-long call, Scholz “urged the Russian president to come as quickly as possible to a diplomatic solution, including the withdrawal of Russian troops,” the German leader’s spokesman said.
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