KYIV, 31 May 2022, (TON): EU Council President Charles Michel said “as Ukrainian and Russian forces battled on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk, the last city still held by Kyiv in Ukraine’s strategic Luhansk province.”

Michel said on Twitter the ban would immediately cover more than two thirds of oil imports from Russia cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine.

Michel added “the EU leaders, meeting in Brussels, also agreed to cut off the largest Russian bank Sberbank from the SWIFT system and to ban three more Russian state-owned broadcasters.”

Shortly before the announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation remained “extremely difficult” in the Donbas region, where Russia has focus of its military effort after failing to capture Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in March.