Ukraine confirm over 5,800 Russian troops killed
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Mr Biden is facing the heat from politicians in the US, who demand that the country ditch its reliance on Russian oil imports amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For the past several months leading up to the Ukraine invasion, Washington has applied pressure on the EU to wean itself off of Russian gas. This comes despite the fact that Russia is the third biggest exporter of energy to the US.
Even though the U.S. is the world’s top oil exporter, it imported about 672,000 barrels a day of oil and refined products from Russia, the Wall Street Journal reports.
In the face of the conflict in Ukraine, top Democrat Joe Manchin slammed Mr Biden, arguing that it was hypocritical to ask the EU to do “what we can do for ourselves”.
He said: “To continue to ask other countries to do what we can do for ourselves in a cleaner way is hypocritical.
“To continue to rely on Russian energy as they attack Ukraine is senseless.
“The entire world is watching as Vladimir Putin uses energy as a weapon in an attempt to extort and coerce our European allies.
“While Americans decry what is happening in Ukraine, the United States continues to allow the import of more than half a million barrels per day of crude oil and other petroleum products from Russia during this time of war,”
While western countries have imposed tough sanctions on Russia since the invasion, most of these has not included oil and gas, which is a major portion of Russia’s export.
After the Russian invasion began on Thursday, February 24, exports of gas through Ukraine — the route of the key pipelines to the rest of Europe — increased, jumping 38 percent overnight resulting in already record-high gas prices soaring further.
The biggest sanctions that have been imposed on Russian energy come from the blocking of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline by Germany.
The pipeline, which flowed under the Baltic Sea, would have significantly raised exports of gas from Russia to Germany.
In the US, Mr Manchin warned that continuing to import from Russia “makes no sense at all and represents a clear and present danger to our nation’s energy security.
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“The United States can and must ramp up domestic energy production and increase access to our abundant resources and technologies to both protect our energy independence and support our allies around the globe.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki insists that increasing American production of energy is not the solution and instead the US should focus on renewable energy sources to prevent dependence on foreign oil.
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