Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, has urged Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, that a Russian oil embargo must be included in the bloc’s next wave of penalties.

Kuleba tweeted, “the next round of EU sanctions on Russia which must include an oil embargo.”

He says, “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.”

Kuleba “also emphasized there can be no alternative to granting Ukraine EU candidate status.”

Ukraine accomplished another stage in the long process of becoming an EU member state on April 18.

It handed over a form containing responses to a European Union questionnaire.

Finally, Kuleba and Borrell talked about the evacuations in the besieged southern city of Mariupol, according to the tweet.