
Business May 1, 2022
EU to propose phasing out Russian oil by the end of the year
The EU will also push for more banks from Russia and Belarus to be cut off from the SWIFT international payment system, including Sberbank, Russia's largest lender.
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The EU will also push for more banks from Russia and Belarus to be cut off from the SWIFT international payment system, including Sberbank, Russia's largest lender.
Senior lawmakers in Berlin, who now concede that such closeness to Russia was a historic liability, are starting to see the danger of repeating the mistake with another authoritarian regime.
But one U.S. concern is that an outright EU ban on Russian oil could see prices skyrocket and give the Kremlin even more revenue.
With Russia's war in Ukraine now in its second month, a series of dilemmas are coming into sharp focus over conditions for any accord and potential security guarantees for Kyiv.
Senior Italian and Russian officials reportedly met to discuss potential business investments worth hundreds of millions of euros just over a week before Moscow invaded Ukraine.
Member states of the bloc adopted sanctions Wednesday against 23 high-ranking individuals including banking executives, military chiefs, media figures and a top Kremlin official.
Russia has little incentive to antagonize China, its largest trading partner with total trade valuing $112 billion in 2020.
As the U.S. and its allies struggle for a sense of Putin’s true intentions, their attention is turning to what might happen either alongside, or in place of, a full military attack.
European nations also fret that Russia would likely retaliate, possibly even cutting crucial gas supplies to a continent already grappling with record high energy prices.
The condition of terrain could create a window of diplomacy to steer President Vladimir Putin away from a war, analysts say.