Losses Mount: Fatalities in Belgorod, Kharkiv Villages Captured
At least 15 fatalities and 20 injuries were reported after a residential building in Russia's Belgorod collapsed, with the cause still being unclear
In a resolution passed by 513 votes to 22, with 19 abstentions, MEPs called for additional sanctions, including an “immediate full embargo on imports of oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas originating in Russia”.
According to the document, this should be accompanied by a plan to ensure security of energy supply for the EU, as well as a strategy to “lift sanctions one by one if Russia takes steps to restore Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and completely withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine”.
MEPs also urge member states to stop cooperating with Russian companies on existing and new nuclear projects, including in Finland, Hungary and Bulgaria, where Russian experts can be replaced by Western ones, and to phase out Rosatom's services.
Exclusion of Russia from the G20 and other multilateral organizations
MEPs call on EU leaders to exclude Russia from the G20 and other multilateral organizations, such as the UN Human Rights Council, Interpol, the World Trade Organization, UNESCO and others, “which would be an important sign that the international community will not return to its previous usual relationship with the aggressor state.”
In order to increase the effectiveness of sanctions, the EP calls on Russian banks to be excluded from the SWIFT system, to ban all vessels connected to Russia, to enter EU territorial waters and to dock in EU ports, and to ban road haulage to and from the territory of Russia and Belarus.
MEPs also demand the seizure of “all assets belonging to Russian officials or oligarchs linked to the Putin regime, their intermediaries and proxies, and those in Belarus linked to the Lukashenko regime”.
Citing Belarus' involvement in the war in Ukraine, the resolution calls for sanctions against Belarus to be equivalent to those imposed on Russia, in order to eliminate any loopholes that allow Putin to use Lukashenko's aid to circumvent sanctions.
Weapons supplies must continue and be increased
MEPs refer to the shocking atrocities “which undoubtedly constitute war crimes” committed by the Russian military in Ukraine, in particular in Bucha, and the complete or almost complete destruction of Mariupol, Volnovakha and other towns and villages. They emphasize that perpetrators of war crimes must be brought to justice, and call for the establishment of a special UN tribunal for crimes in Ukraine.
Parliament reiterates that arms supplies must continue and be increased in order to enable Ukraine to defend itself effectively. MEPs support further defense assistance provided to the Ukrainian armed forces individually by EU Member States and collectively through the European Peace Facility.
With almost 6.5 million Ukrainians displaced and more than 4 million fleeing the war as a result of the war, MEPs call for safe humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians fleeing the bombings, and to strengthen EU humanitarian aid networks in Ukraine
They condemn Russia's rhetoric, which suggests the possibility of resorting to the use of weapons of mass destruction, and stress that any such use would have the worst possible consequences.
Call for a special UN tribunal for war crimes in Ukraine
The EP is outraged by the reported atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces and urges that perpetrators of war crimes be brought to justice.
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