- There is an urgent need for a Russian oil price cap as Moscow escalates its war, a senior adviser to Ukraine’s president told Reuters.
- “We must cut off the regime’s blood money, which it uses to kill our people,” said Oleg Ustenko, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief economic adviser.
- The Group of Seven is working on a price cap to coincide with the EU oil embargo planned for December.
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The need to cap Russian oil prices is becoming more urgent as Moscow plans to deploy more troops to fight in Ukraine, a senior economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters in a report published on Wednesday.
“Russia is fighting one last fight, so we need to be even more united, including on sanctions policy,” said Oleg Ustenko, Zelenskyi’s chief economic adviser. “We need to cut off the regime’s blood money they’re using to kill our people.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Wednesday that Russia would mobilize more troops for its war in Ukraine. Moscow, whose army suffered numerous setbacks during the invasion, plans to call up up to 300,000 reservists. Putin also alluded to Russia’s nuclear arsenal, saying the country will use all of its resources “to defend our people.”
The Group of Seven industrialized democracies agreed earlier this month to work on setting a price cap on Russian oil to curb Moscow’s revenues. It has not yet been announced how high the upper limit will be.
“We’re making pretty quick progress on the price cap mechanism, discussions are almost over,” Ustenko told Reuters.
The G7 are aiming to introduce the price cap by December 5, when the European Union imposes a partial ban on Russian oil imports. The idea is to ban services such as insurance for shippers transporting Russian oil above the price cap.
India and China have emerged as the top importers of Russian crude since the war began in late February. The two countries bought an additional $9 billion worth of Russian crude in the second quarter compared to the first quarter, according to the Financial Times.
The price of Russia’s Ural oil blend traded at $71.05 a barrel on Wednesday, below the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, at $87.74.
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