The President of the European Council has no doubts that the Russian black gold is waiting for an embargo from the EU. And he symbolically expressed this confidence today in Greece, where the construction of a new liquefied natural gas terminal began, Radio Liberty notes Zoryan Stepanenko for TSN .

It will be a plant capable of pumping 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually, will start up at the end of next year, and Charles Michel called it an investment in the future, adding that the EU will certainly end its dependence on Russian energy resources so that Moscow can no longer use them as an instrument of pressure or blackmail.

“The war in Ukraine is a vital story. This is probably also the moment of truth for the European Union. We must build our European sovereignty, be more strategic and create our new energy independence,” says European Council President Charles Michel.

To put an end to dependence on Russian energy resources – the European Union has repeatedly called for this in Kyiv. It is they, as Bloomberg journalists have calculated, that at the end of the year will fill the Russian treasury in the amount of more than 320 billion dollars. And in order not to finance the war against Ukraine with its own hands, the EU has already abandoned Russian coal. And now he wants oil as well – the embargo on it will become part of a new package of sanctions, which, according to Radio Liberty sources, will be presented by Brussels today.

The ban on her, they add, will be gradual. It will begin to act next year, and, as Reuters journalists write, Hungary and Slovakia, which are too dependent on Russian oil, can generally be freed from it. Thanks to these exceptions, it will be easier for the bloc to reach an agreement and avoid a veto from specific capitals.

“The EU is also actively working to cut its gas ties with Russia. We have announced that we can partially replace Russian natural gas with alternative supplies. To be more specific, we have contacted all major suppliers and outlined the available volumes. One third by the end of the year we will be able to replace it with alternative supplies,” says European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson.

The new package of sanctions will also affect the Russian banking sector. More banks will have to forget about SWIFT, the head of European diplomacy announces. Sources of the publication indicate that the largest Russian financial institution, Sberbank, will also be cut off from the network through which millions of international transactions are made daily. This package still has to go through all the stages of the European bureaucracy, however, the eastern flank of the EU – the traditional advocates of Ukraine – the Baltic countries – have already promised: they will seek tough sanctions against the aggressor.

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