In Ukraine on Thursday, April 6, civilians continued to flee the east of the country as clashes grew more intensive in the Donbas region with Russia focusing on its invasion there. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the latest EU proposal not to buy coal from Russia as a measure that could be perceived in Moscow as a permission to continue its invasion, Ukrainian public broadcaster Ukrinform and British BBC report.
In the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukrainian authorities called on the population to evacuate from Ukrainian-controlled areas with Russia having some success in its current Donbas offensive. The BBC saw thousands of people moving away from the vast area in civilian transport leaving empty cities and towns behind. Elsewhere in Ukraine the thread of Russian missiles and bombs remained high.
Village of Andriivka near Kyiv after a visit from Russia#StopRussia #RussianWarCrimes pic.twitter.com/XCJHnanxoz
— Stratcom Centre UA (@StratcomCentre) April 7, 2022
The EU member states were discussing what further measures they could impose on Russia to damage its war effort. Proposals from the European Commission include a ban on importing Russian coal, but not natural gas and oil.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy evaluated that without more effective sanctions against Russia and if Ukraine does not receive the weapons it needs to fight Russian troops with equal weapons and military systems, Russia would regard this as permission to go further.
«We will continue to insist on a complete blockade of the Russian banking system from international finance. We will also continue to insist on one or another format of the democratic world’s refusal to buy Russian oil. It is the export of oil that is one of the foundations of Russia’s aggression. One of the foundations that allows the Russian leadership not to take seriously the negotiations on ending the war and on the liberation of Ukrainian territory,» Zelenskyy noted.
See his latest video address with English subtitles.
Meanwhile, NATO continued a foreign minister meeting in Brussels on the Russia’s war in Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: «We are now in a critical phase of the war. We see that Russia is moving forces out of the north to reinforce them, to resupply them, to rearm them and then to move them into the east where we are expecting a major offensive. President Putin’s aim is to try to control the whole of Donbas and to establish a land bridge [to Crimea]. We have seen no indication that President Putin has changed his ambition to control the whole of Ukraine and also to rewrite the international order.»
The military alliance also planned to discuss NATO’s New Strategic Concept, which will address the new security reality, including the security consequences of Russia’s aggressive actions, of the shifting global balance of power, the security consequences of a much stronger China, and the challenges Russia and China are posing together to our rules based international order and our democratic values.