Deputy prime minister raises prospect of closing Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany, and says rejecting Russian oil would be ‘catastrophic’ for world
Moscow has stoked fears of an energy war by threatening to close a major gas pipeline to Germany after the US pushed its European allies to consider banning Russian oil imports over its invasion of Ukraine.
In an address on Russian state television, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said: “A rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market”, and claimed the price of oil could rise to more than US$300 a barrel.
Ukrainian intelligence claimed that a Russian general has died in fighting around Kharkiv, the second such officer killed in a week. It broadcast what it said was a conversation between Russian FSB officers discussing the death of Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, and complaining that their secure communications no longer functioned inside Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, rallied the nation in a fresh late-night video address, saying that “heroic” resistance was making the war “like a nightmare” for Russia. Taking viewers on a tour of his quarters in Kyiv, he promised to stay in the capital until the war was won.
The humanitarian crisis continued to deepen, with 1.7 million Ukrainians thought to have fled the fighting, with the potential for the total to reach 5 million, the EU said. The UN human rights office has reported 406 confirmed civilian deaths but said the number was a vast undercount.
Zelenskiy is to address UK MPs on Tuesday via video link and is expected to plead for more arms and a no-fly zone over Ukraine to be enforced by Nato.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, claimed the prospects of the country joining the EU had greatly increased, according to Ukraine’s Unian website. The distance to EU membership had been as far away as the moon last week, but was now only from Kyiv to the city of Vinnitsa – a distance of just 262km or 162 miles, he said.
Fresh talks between Ukraine and Russia are expected, after a third round ended without agreement on the evacuation of civilians via humanitarian corridors, although a Ukrainian negotiator said small progress had been made. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, accused Vladimir Putin of “moral and political cynicism” and hypocrisy for making promises to protect civilians so they could flee only to Russia.
