The Heritage Minister says the invasion of Ukraine will continue as long as Germany is helping to fund the war machine by importing Russian fossil fuels.
The Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said yesterday, on a visit to Ukraine, that Ireland was lobbying for a full ban on Russian energy imports as part of a new round of EU sanctions.
It’s understood the biggest opposition to the move has so far been by Germany which is heavily dependent on Russian imports.
The EU is understood to be buying a billion dollars a day worth of fossil fuels from Russia and Carlow Kilkenny Green TD Malcolm Noonan has been telling KCLR that the war will not end until this funding is cut off; “But they’re in a very difficult position in terms of those part of the sanctions but if a billion dollars a day is going towards Putin’s war machine he’s going to continue fighting and I think unfortunately we’ve seen that unless the flow of Russian oil and gas is stopped into Europe the war will be protracted and long, unfortunately”.