Russian troops take ‘control’ in part of Severodonetsk city

KYIV, May 31 (Arab News/Al Jazeera): Russian forces have taken partial control of a key industrial city in eastern Ukraine, a regional governor said Tuesday, hours after European Union leaders struck a deal to ban more than two-thirds of Moscow's oil imports.

Severodonetsk is one of several urban hubs that lie on Russia's path to capturing the Donbas's Lugansk region, where Moscow has shifted the bulk of its firepower since failing to capture Kyiv in the war's early stages.

"The situation is extremely complicated. Part of Severodonetsk is controlled by the Russians," Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a statement on social media, adding that Ukrainian troops still retained some areas.

But as Russian troops edged closer to the Severodonetsk city center, officials in Brussels were tightening the economic screws on Moscow.

A compromise deal reached late Monday, meant to punish Russia for its invasion three months ago, cuts "a huge source of financing for its war machine," European Council chief Charles Michel tweeted.

"Maximum pressure on Russia to end the war," he said.

Leaders of the 27-nation bloc met to negotiate the long-sought deal amid concerns raised by Hungary and other neighboring countries reliant on Russian fuel.

The agreement also includes plans for the EU to send nine billion euros ($9.7 billion) in "immediate liquidity" to Kyiv, Michel announced.

Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had called an oil embargo the "key point" to any sanctions package.

"I believe that Europe will have to give up Russian oil and oil products in any case, because this is about the independence of Europeans themselves from (weaponized) Russian energy," he said in his daily address to the nation.

The Netherlands on Tuesday became the latest European country to have its Russian gas shipments halted after refusing to pay in rubles, a demand Moscow is making of "unfriendly countries" in a bid to sidestep crippling Western sanctions.

"Gazprom has completely stopped gas supplies to (Dutch Energy Firm) GasTerra due to non-payment in rubles," the Russian gas giant said in a morning statement.

An Al Jazeera report adds: A Ukrainian court has sentenced two captured Russian soldiers to more than 11 years in jail each for shelling a civilian area in the country's east amid Moscow's offensive.

Tuesday's sentencing of Alexander Bobikin and Alexander Ivanov is the second verdict handed down in war crimes trials held by Ukraine since the start of Russia's invasion in late February.

Bobikin and Ivanov, who watched proceedings at the Kotelevska district court in central Ukraine from within a reinforced glass box, both pleaded guilty last week to "violating the laws and customs of war".

"The guilt of Bobikin and Ivanov has been proven in full," Judge Evhen Bolybok said. There was no immediate response to the judgement from Moscow.

The pair had acknowledged being part of an artillery unit that fired at targets in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region from the neighbouring Belgorod region in Russia.

The shelling destroyed a school in the town of Derhachi but caused no casualties, prosecutors said. Bobikin and Ivanov, described as an artillery driver and a gunner, were allegedly captured after crossing the border and continuing the shelling.

Prosecutors had asked the court to jail the Russian service members for 12 years, while their defence asked for leniency, saying the two soldiers had been following orders and repented.