Joe Biden has promised further military aid for Ukraine worth $500m (£415m) during his unannounced visit to Kyiv, as EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss ways to accelerate the provision of ammunition.
The US president also said additional sanctions would be announced this week against Russia’s elite and companies trying to evade existing sanctions in order to “back the Russian war machine”.
In a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Biden discussed the text of a resolution to be put to a vote at the UN on Thursday, according to the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
Among the options being discussed in Brussels is a plan to guarantee cash in advance to defence industries so that a steady supply of ammunition production could flow to the Ukrainian army. The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the most important task at hand was to ensure Ukraine had enough in stock.
“It is the most urgent issue. If we fail on that, the result of the war is in danger,” he said before the meeting. “The Russian artillery shoots about 50,000 shots a day, and Ukraine needs to be at the same level of capacity. They have cannons but they lack ammunition.”
Borrell regards the advance payments scheme as a vital medium-term solution, but wants ammunition delivered from national stocks now.
The foreign affairs council will also discuss the details of the next phase of EU sanctions, after an initial informal meeting with the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kubela.
The package – the 10th – will be divided into three parts. The first contains a list of vital industrial goods that Russia will be barred from obtaining from the EU including spare parts for machines and trucks, electronic components, rare earths, cameras and lenses, lasers and chemicals. Overall, this should cover about €11bn (£9.8bn) worth of goods.
Borrel said he was confident that the complex sanctions package will be agreed soon. It requires unanimity among member states, putting pressure on Borrel from those that want tougher measures such as the Baltic states and those who believe that the measures are counterproductive, such as Hungary
As reported by the EUobserver portal, Russia will no longer be allowed to import pyrotechnics or water cannon from the EU to disperse demonstrations. There will be a ban on dual-use goods, as well as finally entry bans and freezes on bank accounts covering 130 Russian propagandists, politicians, the military and bankers.
Although some Russian banks will be targeted, big exemptions include Bank Saint Petersburg and Gazprombank, which will continue to be allowed to do business in Europe. This may be because the EU cannot secure unanimity on a ban on the supply of liquefied natural gas even though the main supplying company is Novatek, which is largely owned by close allies of Vladimir Putin.
The Belgian-based diamond trade industry is also likely to be exempted even though it is a sizeable source of income for Russia.
Meanwhile, Borrell said he had been assured by a senior Chinese diplomat, Wang Yi, that China would not supply arms to Russia.
Borrell met Wang at the Munich security conference over the weekend. The US said at the weekend it had intelligence that it was preparing to reveal that Beijing intended to provide weapons to Moscow for the first time, a step that would transform the diplomatic and military landscape. The Chinese foreign ministry has rejected the claim.
“For us, it would be a red line in our relationship,” Borrell said he told Wang. “He told me that they are not going to do it, that they don’t plan to do it. But we will remain vigilant.”
Wang is in Moscow on Monday where he is to spell out the details of the peace plan that is due to be unveiled this week by China’s president, Xi Jinping.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday: “We urge the US side to seriously consider what they themselves have done and to do something more concrete to defuse the situation and promote peace talks.”
The US should stop blaming others and “spreading disinformation”, they said, adding that Washington, which has supplied arms continuously since the war began, “is in no position to make demands or pressure China”.
