- Moscow said it would "find other importers" after the EU reached an agreement on a Russian oil ban.
- EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the measures on Monday.
- Ukraine has pushed EU countries to move away from Russian gas and oil.
Moscow said on Tuesday that it will "find other importers" after European Union leaders reached an agreement to ban Russian oil.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Monday that the bloc would cut around 90% of oil imports from Russia to the EU by the end of 2022 — the latest round of sanctions aimed at punishing Moscow for its ongoing war in Ukraine.
"As she rightly said yesterday, #Russia will find other importers," Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to the International Organizations in Vienna, tweeted in response, throwing in a taunt that the EU is "not in a good shape."
Russia, a top global producer of crude oil, relies heavily on revenue from oil and natural gas. Europe depends on these commodities for its energy needs; over the last few months, the EU bloc has spent billions on Russian oil.
Ukraine's government has tried to convince the West to slap harsher sanctions on Moscow and pushed EU countries to move away from Russian gas and oil.
Charles Michel, president of the European Council, tweeted on Monday that the EU's oil ban "immediately covers more than 2/3 of oil imports from Russia, cutting a huge source of financing for its war machine."
Yet the ban also includes carve-outs for Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic to continue buying Russian oil, keeping billions flowing into the Kremlin's coffers.
Still, sweeping economic sanctions against Russia — which have been imposed by a slew of European and Western countries since the late-February invasion of Ukraine — have also led economists to suggest that the country's economy is "imploding" under the strain.
Von der Leyen echoed these claims last week, asserting that Western sanctions are "draining" Russia's economy and crippling the efforts of President Vladimir Putin's troops — who are fighting a grinding and bloody campaign against Ukrainian forces in the country's eastern Donbas region.