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"We
cannot wait...We need powerful decisions, and the EU must take
them now. They must sanction oil and all Russian banks...Each EU
state must set terms for when they will refuse or limit
(Russian) energy sources such as gas", he said.
"Only then will the Russian government understand they need to
seek peace, that the war is turning into a catastrophe for
them," he told the Lithuanian parliament in a video address.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on
Feb. 24 on what he calls a special military operation to
demilitarise and "denazify" Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say
Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
The EU executive is drafting proposals for a possible EU oil
embargo on Russia, foreign ministers have said, although there
is still no agreement to ban Russian crude.
Galvanised by what Ukraine says are senseless killings of
civilians by Russian troops since the start of the invasion, the
bloc last week approved a fifth round of sanctions on Russia
that included an end to Russian coal imports.
Zelenskiy told the parliament that Russian soldiers had behaved
the same everywhere they had stayed as they did in the town of
Bucha. Russian forces are accused of killing many civilians
there, although the Kremlin has denied this and says the
incident was staged.
The Ukrainian leader also said Russia had deported hundreds of
thousands of people from occupied Ukrainian regions into
"filtration camps". There was no comment from Moscow moment on
the latest allegations but it generally denies targeting and
abusing civilians in the conflict.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas, writing by Jan Lopatka, Editing by
Gareth Jones and Angus MacSwan)
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