On February 3, the G7 agreed on a ceiling price for the export of Russian petroleum products.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the cap is consistent with a similar price cap for Russian oil set in December and “helps achieve our goals of limiting Russia’s primary source of revenue in financing its illegal war” in Ukraine.
The limit is at two levels – $100 a barrel for Russian diesel and other fuels that sell for more than crude oil, and $45 a barrel for Russian petroleum products that sell for less than the price of crude oil, such as fuel oil.
The price restrictions are due to the fact that on February 5, restrictive measures of the European Union on the import of Russian petroleum products will come into force.
On the same day, European Union officials pledged their continued support for Ukraine to rebuild infrastructure in the face of Russia’s ongoing war, and the United States announced a new one-year aid package. worth more than $2 billion.
European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev to attend the 24th Ukraine-EU Summit.
Officials said the union would support Ukraine “as long as it takes”. In a joint statement, they promised to help restore Ukraine’s destroyed critical infrastructure by providing energy support. To date, the EU and its Member States have provided $570 million in energy and reconstruction assistance and a further $525 million for humanitarian purposes.
Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen underlined their commitment to promoting Ukraine’s integration into the European Union. Kiev applied for EU membership shortly after the start of the Russian invasion and is keen to begin formal membership negotiations as soon as possible.
“There are no strict deadlines, but there are targets you have to achieve,” von der Leyen told a news conference. One of the conditions for Ukraine’s integration into the EU is the fight against corruption, Kiev’s fight highly appreciated by the President of the European Commission.
Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen also condemned Russia’s military escalation as “a flagrant violation of international law, including the principles of the UN charter” and stressed that the EU would never recognize annexation. territory of Ukraine and reaffirmed the need to establish a Special Tribunal in The Hague to investigate war crimes against Ukraine.
A new package of sanctions against Russia, the tenth, has been made public. According to von der Leyen, it targets trade and technology that support war.
Russia has officially incorporated the occupied parts of Ukraine into its Southern Military District, the British Ministry of Defense announced in its daily intelligence report on February 4. The report is based on information from TASS that the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, are under the control of the Russian military command based in Rostov-on-Don. However, the British ministry said the move “is unlikely to have an immediate impact” on the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
