‘Stop playing with Russia’

Rolling in: Pro-Russian troops driving a tank past a board reading ‘Secondhand clothes’ during the Ukraine-Russia conflict in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk region, Ukraine. — Reuters

KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the West to stop playing around with Russia and impose tougher sanctions on it to end its “senseless war” in Ukraine, adding that his country would remain independent, with the only question being at what price.

Zelenskyy’s criticism of the West has mounted in recent days as the European Union moves slowly towards a possible Russian oil embargo and as thousands of Russian troops try to encircle the two eastern cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.