Key Points
- European Union leaders have agreed to ban the export of Russian oil to the 27-nation bloc
- EU Council President said on Twitter the ban would immediately cover more than two-thirds of oil imports from Russia
A Ukrainian court sentenced two captured Russian soldiers to 11-and-a-half years in jail on Tuesday for shelling a town in eastern Ukraine, the second war crimes verdict since the start of Russia's invasion in February.
Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov, who listened to the verdict standing in a reinforced glass box at the Kotelevska district court in central Ukraine, both pleaded guilty last week.
"The guilt of Bobikin and Ivanov has been proven in full," Judge Evhen Bolybok said.
Both acknowledged last week being part of an artillery unit that fired at targets in the Kharkiv region from the Belgorod region in Russia.
The shelling destroyed an educational facility in the town of Derhachi, but caused no casualties, the prosecutors said.
Bobikin and Ivanov, described as an artillery driver and a gunner, were captured after crossing the border and continuing the shelling.
Prosecutors had asked the court to jail the Russian servicemen for 12 years, while the defence asked for leniency, saying the two soldiers had been following orders and repented.
EU agrees to ban most Russian oil as battle rages for Ukrainian region of Donbas
European Union leaders have agreed to ban the export of Russian oil to the 27-nation bloc, as Ukrainian and Russian forces battle on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, the last city still held by Kyiv in Ukraine's strategic Luhansk province.
EU Council President Charles Michel said on Twitter the ban would immediately cover more than two-thirds of oil imports from Russia "cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine".
The EU leaders, meeting in Brussels, also agreed to cut off the largest Russian bank Sberbank from the SWIFT system and to ban three more Russian state-owned broadcasters, Mr Michel said.
Shortly before the announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the situation remained "extremely difficult" in the Donbas region, where Russia has focus of its military effort after failing to capture Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, in March.
Mr Zelenskyy had called the EU too soft on Moscow when it appeared leaders would not reach an agreement on the oil ban.
Earlier in Washington, President Joe Biden said the United States would not send Ukraine rocket systems that could reach into Russia, a decision Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called "rational".
Russia has been seeking to seize the entire Donbas region, consisting of Luhansk and Donetsk, another province Moscow claims on behalf of separatist proxies.
Capturing Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk on the opposite bank of the Siverskyi Donets river would give Moscow effective control of Luhansk and allow the Kremlin to declare some form of victory after more than three months of death and destruction in Ukraine.
In his nightly address, Mr Zelenskyy said the Donbas situation "remains extremely difficult" and said the Russian army was "trying to gather a superior force to put more and more pressure on our defenders".
"The Russian army has now gathered there the maximum combat power," he said of Donbas as a whole.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (left) talks with European leaders. Source: Getty / Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
Mr Zelenskyy said Russian forces shelled the city of Kharkiv again on Monday, as well as the border region of Sumy, which was hit from inside Russia.
Russian shelling has reduced much of Sievierodonetsk to ruins, but the Ukrainian defence has slowed the wider Russian campaign in the Donbas.
Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said Russian troops had advanced into Sievierodonetsk's southeastern and northeastern fringes, but Ukrainian forces had driven them from the village of Toshkivka to the south.
A French journalist, Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff of television channel BFM, was killed near Sievierodonetsk on Monday when shelling hit the vehicle he was travelling in during an evacuation of civilians. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who was visiting Ukraine, demanded an investigation.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin, in talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Russia was ready to facilitate unhindered grain exports from Ukrainian ports in co-ordination with Turkey.
Western leaders have chided Russia for blockading Ukrainian ports, sending prices of grain and other commodities soaring. The United Nations has said a global food crisis is deepening and has been trying to broker a deal to unblock Ukraine's grain exports.
"Emphasis was placed on ensuring safe navigation in the Black and Azov seas and eliminating the mine threat in their waters," the Kremlin said of Mr Putin's call with Mr Erdogan.
Mr Putin said if sanctions were lifted, Russia could export significant volumes of fertilisers and agricultural products.
Efforts to agree an EU oil embargo has been blocked by Hungary's refusal to agree to a ban on Russian imports it receives through the huge Soviet-era "Friendship" pipeline that runs across Ukraine.
Mr Zelenskyy had questioned the lack of EU resolve.
"Why are you dependent on Russia ... Why can Russia still earn almost a billion euros a day by selling energy?" he said in an address to EU leaders.
