Complete Russian Energy Embargo Is What We Want, Ukraine Asserts

Ukraine hopes the European Union will impose an embargo on Russian natural gas and oil and wants Ukraine and Europe to "completely abandon Russian energy resources", a senior member of the Ukrainian parliament said on Thursday.

Andriy Gerus, who heads parliament's Committee on Energy and Public Utilities, said he expected fuel supplies in Ukraine to improve in mid-May and that Ukraine had a surplus of coal. He expected Kyiv would have to start importing natural gas again over the summer to fill storage facilities for the next heating season.

"As soon as European countries stop buying Russian gas, we will gladly stop transiting it to Europe," he told an online briefing. "We support the (EU) embargo on both oil and oil products, as well as on gas and coal, and we hope that we will come to this with time, that Ukraine and Europe will completely abandon Russian energy resources."