Zelensky shares chilling video urging Europeans to stop buying Russian fuel

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has shared a chilling video featuring images of war as he urged Europeans to stop buying Russian fuel.

Zelensky uploaded the clip to social media yesterday along with the caption: “Buying Russian oil and gas, you are financing the killings of Ukrainians. Act more decisively. Stop feeding the Russian military machine.”

The one-minute clip shows a person refuelling their car at a petrol station emblazoned with the EU flag.

Happy music plays throughout as the clip cuts between carefree scenes of the woman at the gas station and footage of the atrocities in Ukraine.

On-screen text appears throughout that reads: “You don’t pay in euros or rubles for Russian gas and oil.

“You pay in the lives of the same Europeans as you.”

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The video states that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia “have the courage to refuse funding genocide.”

“What about the rest?” the video asks.

During the last few seconds, devastating images of the dead are shown on-screen along with the text: “Is there still enough courage in Europe to stop Ukraine’s genocide?”

Warning: This video contains graphic content

The video was posted as prime minister Boris Johnson is set to meet German chancellor Olaf Scholz at Downing Street today to discuss how to help European countries wean themselves off Russian gas.

Johnson is expected to offer assistance to Berlin, which is still heavily reliant on Russian gas, to reduce its dependence on Moscow’s energy exports in a bid to starve Vladimir Putin’s war machine of funds.

It comes as the Foreign Office targeted the daughters of Russian president Vladimir Putin and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov with sanctions.

A statement said it was aiming to hit the “lavish lifestyles of the Kremlin’s inner circle”.

It said: “Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova and Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova, the daughters of president Putin, and Yekaterina Sergeyevna Vinokurova, daughter of foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, will be subject to travel bans and asset freezes.”

While foreign secretary Liz Truss, following a meeting of Nato counterparts in Brussels on Thursday, said she hoped to see “more countries” commit to banning Russian energy imports.

The UK has pledged to end all imports of Russian coal and oil by the end of 2022, with gas to follow as soon as possible.

Also on Thursday, the European Union said members had agreed to new sanctions that included an embargo on Russian coal imports.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has pushed for foreign leaders to go further on cutting ties with the Kremlin.

“As long as the West continues buying Russian gas and oil it is supporting Ukraine with one hand while supporting the Russian war machine with another hand,” he said in Brussels.

He took particular umbrage with Germany, urging it to cut red tape and speed up support to Ukraine.

“While Berlin has time, Kyiv doesn’t,” Kuleba said.

Germany has faced criticism from Ukraine and other European nations, including Poland, with claims it has been too slow to phase out Russian energy.

Robert Habeck, the German economy and energy minister, has announced plans to stop importing oil and coal from Russia this year, and gas by mid-2024.

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