In view of the advance of Russian troops in the east of his country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the EU for the planned new sanctions package and at the same time called for new punitive measures.

"Ultimately, there should be no significant economic ties between the free world and the terrorist state," he said in his video speech published on Tuesday evening.

"We will work on new restrictions against Russia for this war."

Thanks to the EU's planned oil boycott, Russia is losing "tens of billions of euros" that can no longer be used to finance terrorism.

At the same time, Zelenskyi reiterated his demands for the delivery of heavy weapons to the West.

The US government announced that it would deliver modern multiple rocket launchers as part of a new security package.

Liberate areas occupied by heavy weapons

As soon as these heavy weapons are available, the army should start liberating the territories occupied by Russia.

Ukraine will not rush to recapture its territories if that means tens of thousands of victims, but will instead wait for the necessary weapons, Zelenskyy said in Kyiv on Tuesday at a meeting with Slovak President Zuzana Caputova.

For weeks he has been demanding the delivery of heavy weapons from the West to ward off attacks in eastern Ukraine and push back Russian troops.

The US government will deliver advanced missile systems to Ukraine, according to President Joe Biden.

Biden wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times that the attacked country should be able to hit "key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine" more precisely.

At the same time, Biden assured: "We do not want a war between NATO and Russia." The USA also did not try to overthrow Russian President Vladimir Putin.

80 km range

The White House said Ukraine had pledged not to attack targets on Russian territory with the US-made HIMARS artillery system.

The system is part of a $700 million package that also includes missiles, radar systems, Javelin anti-tank weapons, helicopters, vehicles and spare parts.

A senior US official said the US would supply missiles with the HIMARS system that would only have a range of around 80 kilometers.

Biden underscored that there is currently no evidence that Russia intends to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Russia's "occasional nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric" is in itself dangerous and irresponsible.

Fighting for Sieverodonetsk

In the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, Russian troops are poised to overthrow the last bastion of Ukrainian forces.

If the embattled regional capital Sievjerodonetsk falls, Russia would have achieved one of its war aims: complete control of the Luhansk region.

From there, the Russian troops and the separatists loyal to Moscow could advance further west in order to capture the strategically important cities of Slovjansk and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region.

The administrative center in the Luhansk region, which is controlled by Ukrainian authorities, has been fought over for days.

The leader of the People's Republic of Luhansk, recognized by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin as a state, Leonid Passechnik, said that two-thirds of the city are now under the control of pro-Russian forces.

Ukraine's governor Hajday said most of Sieverodonetsk is now under Russian control.

Still, the Ukrainian defenders didn't give up.

Ninety percent of the city's buildings are damaged, and 60 percent are not worth rebuilding, he said.

Of once 100,000 inhabitants, 12,000 are said to have remained.

EU could adopt sanctions package

After the EU states agreed on an extensive boycott of oil supplies from Russia at a summit in Brussels, further details of the sixth sanctions package are to be worked out this Wednesday.

The package could then be formally approved.

It is planned to exclude the largest Russian bank Sberbank from the SWIFT communications network.

In addition, the state television news channel Rossija 24 and the state channels RTR Planeta and TV Center are to be banned in the EU.

The Russian state-owned company Gazprom will stop supplying gas to the Danish supplier Ørsted and Shell Energy Europe this Wednesday.

Germany is also affected.

Ørsted and Shell informed Gazprom Export that they would not pay the bills in rubles, as Moscow had requested.

Because no money had flowed for the month of April, deliveries would now be stopped.

Shell has stated that gas deliveries to Germany will not be paid for in the Russian currency, Gazprom Export said.

The maximum delivery volume per year under the contract is 1.2 billion cubic meters of gas.