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Ukrainians will fight "for as long as we can" to hold the eastern city of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed on Friday, as Western nations including Australia agreed to impose price caps on Russian oil products.
Key points:
- The EU and a Western coalition including the G7 nations and Australia have agreed to new sanctions on Russia and Russian exports
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed not to give up Bakhmut, and to use new weapons to retake the Donbas
- Kyiv says Russia is sending thousands of soldiers and mercenaries to their deaths for small gains in eastern Ukraine
Meanwhile, the United States said it would send more than $2 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine, including a new rocket that would double Kyiv's strike range to reach most Ukrainian territory now held by the Russians.
The head of the EU's Executive Commission and the chairman of the 27 EU national leaders were in Kyiv to demonstrate support for Ukraine as the first anniversary of Russia's February 24 invasion approaches.
As they and Mr Zelenskyy's government discussed a range of issues, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv and across the country — a regular occurrence during months of Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure far from the battlefields in the east and south — but there were no reports of new air strikes.
Mr Zelenskyy, flanked by the EU leaders at a news conference, said European sanctions should aim to ensure Russia cannot rebuild its military capability.
And he had a defiant message on Bakhmut, the focal point of Ukrainian resistance to Russia's invasion and of Moscow's drive to regain battlefield momentum.
"Nobody will give away Bakhmut. We will fight for as long as we can. We consider Bakhmut our fortress," he said.
Moscow says Russian forces are encircling the city that had a pre-war population of around 75,000 from several directions and battling to take control of a road that is also an important supply route for Ukrainian forces.
"If weapon [supplies] are accelerated, specifically long-range weapons, not only will we not abandon Bakhmut but we will also begin to remove the occupiers from the Donbas [region of eastern Ukraine], occupied since 2014," Mr Zelenskyy said.
Russia has been intensifying pressure on Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv says Moscow is sending thousands of soldiers and mercenaries to their deaths for small gains.
"They bring in men from their draft and try systematically to find places to break through," Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces eastern front, told Ukrainian radio NV.
Moscow says a major objective in Ukraine is securing the rest of Donetsk province, one of four it claimed to have unilaterally annexed last year. Its forces have claimed incremental gains over the past week around Bakhmut.
A Belarusian volunteer fighting for Ukraine inside the city said there was no sign yet Ukrainian forces were planning to pull out.
"For the moment it's the opposite, the positions are being reinforced where the Russians are trying to cut us off… We're holding for now."
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.
The US military aid announced on Friday included rockets known as Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), whose 151km range would put all of Russia's supply lines in eastern Ukraine within reach, as well as part of the Crimea peninsula, also seized by Moscow in 2014.
In addition, the German government said it had approved the delivery of Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine from its stocks.
The tanks could be delivered sooner than advanced Leopard 2s that Germany and other countries pledged last week.
Ukraine's defence minister Oleksii Reznikov said the new tanks being supplied by NATO nations would serve as an "iron fist" in a counteroffensive to smash through Russian lines.
No fast-track for EU membership
EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said a 10th sanctions package would hit "trade and technology that supports Russia's war machine".
The package, which the EU is preparing for the anniversary of the invasion, is set to fall short of some of Ukraine's demands, and Kyiv's ambition to join the EU may take longer than it would like.
Ukraine applied to join the EU days after Russia invaded last year. The EU has embraced the application, but rebuffed Ukraine's calls for a fast track to membership while the country is at war.
EU officials have listed multiple membership requirements, from political and economic stability to adopting various EU laws. The process is likely to take years.
The EU has demanded Kyiv tackle what is perceived as endemic state graft. Mr Zelenskyy has announced dismissals and investigations of an array of officials in the past two weeks.
Asked at the news conference with Mr Zelenskyy about Kyiv's membership bid, the commission's Ms von der Leyen said: "There are no rigid timelines, but there are goals that you have to reach."
Oil price caps designed to degrade Russia's campaign
Western economies have agreed new price caps on Russia's exports of oil products that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said would build on the crude oil cap set in December and further limit Russian oil revenues while keeping global energy markets supplied.
The coalition imposing the measures, the Group of Seven (G7) economies, the EU and Australia, set the new price caps at $US100 ($144) per barrel on products that trade at a premium to crude, principally diesel, and $45 per barrel for products that trade at a discount, such as fuel oil and naphtha.
The price caps, together with a European Union ban on Russian oil product imports that also comes into force on Sunday, seek to limit Moscow's ability to fund its war in Ukraine, which began nearly a year ago.
"The caps we have just set will now serve a critical role in our global coalition's work to degrade Russia's ability to prosecute its illegal war," Ms Yellen said in a statement after the agreement was released.
The move followed the coalition's December 5 banning of the use of Western-supplied maritime insurance, finance and brokering for seaborne Russian crude oil priced above $US60 per barrel.
Ms Yellen said the sanctions and price caps were forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to "choose between funding his brutal war or propping up his struggling economy".
Russia's monthly budget revenues from oil and gas fell in January to their lowest level since August 2020 under the impact of Western sanctions on its most lucrative export, Russia's Finance Ministry data showed on Friday.
This month, Russia plans to boost diesel exports in an attempt to cope with the EU embargo, price cap and lack of tankers, data from traders and Refinitiv showed.
Ms Yellen said global energy markets had remained well-supplied and public reports indicated that oil importers such as China and India were using the price cap to "drive steep bargains" on Russian oil.
The measures are disrupting Russia's military supply chains, "making it harder for the Kremlin to equip its troops and continue this unprovoked invasion," Ms Yellen said.
In February last year, Mr Putin ordered what he called a "special military operation" in Ukraine to protect Russian security.
The International Monetary Fund this week raised its 2023 growth projection for Russia by 2.6 percentage points, citing "fairly high" export revenue last year and strong fiscal stimulus from Moscow.
A senior Treasury official told reporters that while Washington was mindful of the IMF's view, it remained convinced that the price caps were "changing the trajectory" of Russia's budget because petroleum was the main source of revenues.
Reuters