Ninety-seven members of the European Parliament called on the EU to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin, imposing an EU embargo on gas and oil imports from Russia.
According to "European Truth", it is a statement from an open letter from MEPs.
"We, MEPs, call on the EU, together with member states, to immediately impose an embargo on oil and gas imports from Russia to the EU until the Russian Federation leaves Ukraine completely. Otherwise, the EU's inaction to stop gas and oil imports from Russia will only continue Putin's armed forces' destruction of Ukrainian cities, infrastructure, economy and social protection of the Ukrainian people," the MEPs said in a statement.
Parliamentarians stressed that while Putin is waging an increasingly brutal war against Ukraine, the EU is increasingly paying for Russian gas and oil into Putin's pockets.
"Europe is now covering the costs of Putin's tanks and artillery against Ukraine when we pay Russia about 600m euros a day for gas and oil imports. It is estimated that one T-72 tank in Russia costs about 1.5m euros, and another one, a modern T-80 tank, costs 3m euros, so the EU sponsors about 400 new T-72 tanks or 200 new T-80 tanks a day through gas and oil purchases from Vladimir Putin. It is more than brave Ukrainian soldiers have destroyed so far (as of 6 March, they destroyed 285 tanks)", say MEPs.
After initial hesitations, the European Parliament said that Europeans had agreed to hand over weapons to Ukraine in the form of anti-tank guns and Stingers but continued to buy Russian gas and thus finance new tanks for Putin.
"We must take sides," the statement said. MEPs added that the embargo on Russian gas and oil imports would completely disconnect Russia from SWIFT.