EU mulls tougher sanctions following Bucha 'atrocities'

Josep Borrell Christian Lindner Germany Italy Eu city Brussels Russia Ukraine city Moscow Climate change carbon emissions War crimes IPCC

04.04.2022 - 21:05

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euronews.com:

Brussels is pushing for a tougher fifth round of sanctions against Moscow following the 'atrocities' revealed over the weekend in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.

The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc “will advance, as a matter of urgency, work on further sanctions against Russia".

"The massacres in the town of Bucha and other Ukrainian towns will be inscribed in the list of atrocities committed on European soil," he said in a statement on Monday. "We stand in full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in these sombre hours for the whole world."

Ukraine accuses the Russian army of having committed a "massacre" in Bucha, a small town northwest of Kyiv, which was occupied by the Russian army on 27 February, and remained inaccessible for more than a month. Moscow denies the accusations.

However, this recent development means an embargo on energy imports from Russia could be back on the table.

But not all member states have the same appetite for an immediate ban on all fossil fuel imports right now, according to Germany's finance minister Christian Lindner.

"We have to cut all economic relationship to Russia but at the moment it's not possible to cut the gas supplies, we need some time so we have to differentiate between oil, coal and gas," Lindner told reporters.

While the previous four packages of unprecedented sanctions are already in place, they have not managed to stop Putin's war.

This makes the energy option the most significant one so far, according to Nathalie Tocci, the Director of the Italian International Affairs Institute.

"We finance [Russia], through our energy purchases of oil, coal and gas, €850 million per day," Tocci told Euronews. "So if we were to stop providing that €850 million, would