Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared a disturbing video on Instagram on Thursday as he renewed calls for Europe to stop buying Russian fuel.
The video begins with people filling up their cars at a petrol station while serene music plays and blue skies can be seen in the background.
The melody continues playing as the footage cuts to brutal clips of the war, presumably from the Russian invasion, providing a stark contrast between the happy civilians and the suffering Ukrainians are facing.
During the one minute video, a message flashes across the screen: “You don’t pay in euros or rubles for Russian gas and oil.
“You pay in the lives of the same Europeans as you.”
It also reminds viewers that only Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have had the courage to “refuse funding genocide”, before asking: “What about the rest?”
Within four hours, the video had more than 1.5 million views.
The Ukrainian president included this caption next to the video: ”[By] buying Russian oil and gas, you are financing the killings of Ukrainians. Act more decisively. Stop feeding the Russian military machine.”
At the end of the clip, the link to Stop Bloody Energy’s website comes up – this is a campaign launched by Ukrainian energy companies calling for the west to stop buying Russia’s largest export, fuel.
In a statement, the major energy corporations write: “Every dollar paid for Russian energy is a dollar that supports a murderous war. You can no longer sit on the fence about doing or not doing business with Russian energy companies.
“And we have a clear message for those who haven’t realised that: what your margins cover today is a specific number of Ukrainian children killed, homes destroyed, cities decimated and millions of lost or war-torn lives.”
The energy supplies say it is only by depriving Russia of “the means to finance” the war that it will end.
Ukraine has been calling for more action and tougher sanctions against Russia for weeks, keen to cripple the country’s income completely so that it has to stop its war.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba repeated this message on Thursday: “As long as the West, let’s put it this way, continues buying Russian gas and oil, it is supporting Ukraine with one hand, while supporting Russia’s war machine with another hand.”
The West did intensify its sanctions this week, even affecting Putin’s daughters, and these may have longer term implications on the Russian economy.
However, Kuebla added: “People are dying today. The offensive is unfolding today. And we need steps which will stop Russia’s war machine today.”
The UK has announced that will have banned all Russian oil imports by the end of this year, although approximately 3% of its total gas supplies still come from the country.
No.10 declared in its new energy strategy how it will be trying to move away from the Kremlin by sourcing fuel from elsewhere. However, some European nations – such as Germany – are still reluctant to cut the cord to Russia because they are so dependent on its supplies.
Still, the amount of fuel Europe buys from Russia reached a four-month high on Tuesday, even though the war started less than two months ago.