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Washington: LONDON (Archyde.com) – British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Wednesday called on all Group of Seven nations to ban Russian oil imports, saying major economic powers must “go farther and go faster” in punishing Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine.
“We have to double our sanctions. Including … putting an end to the use of Russian oil and gas,” Trace said at a joint press conference with her US counterpart, Anthony Blinken, at the State Department in Washington. “Putin must fail,” she said, calling for continued pressure.
The European Union decided to exclude seven Russian banks from the SWIFT system, but it decided to exclude two major financial institutions closely linked to the Russian oil sector due to European countries’ heavy dependence on Russian gas.
This is the reason why the European Union is not moving forward at the present time with a ban on Russian oil imports, contrary to what was previously announced by the United States and the United Kingdom on Tuesday.
“We want to encourage more countries to impose these sanctions,” Truss said.
For his part, Blinken expressed his “full conviction that Putin will fail in the end,” and said, “Russia will suffer a strategic defeat, despite its tactical gains in the short term in Ukraine.”
Blinken stressed that the sanctions “omitted thirty years of progress in Russia’s integration with the rest of the world,” and vowed to “increase pressure” on the Russian president.
On the other hand, Blinken called on “the Kremlin to immediately allow Ukrainian civilians to safely leave Ukrainian cities besieged by Russian forces,” accusing Moscow of “obstructing” departure operations.
Blinken stressed that “the Kremlin’s proposal to establish humanitarian corridors to Russia and Belarus is absurd.”