EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas warned on Thursday that Ukraine was facing a "humanitarian catastrophe" as Russian strikes cut power in frigid winter conditions.
Kallas said that despite U.S.-led talks to end the war in Abu Dhabi Russia was "bombing Ukrainians, trying to bomb and freeze them to surrender."
"It's a very hard winter and Ukrainians are really suffering. There is a humanitarian catastrophe coming there," she said at the start of an EU meeting in Brussels.
Russia has stepped up its strikes against Ukraine's power and heating infrastructure, plunging residents into darkness and cold as temperatures have dropped as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius.
The EU is looking to step up support for Ukraine's power grid and is preparing a new round of sanctions on Moscow for the fourth anniversary of its invasion next month.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Stenergard called for "a full services maritime ban on all Russian vessels that transport energy" to further curb Moscow's revenues.
She also urged a ban on fertilizer imports from Russia and a prohibition on exporting luxury goods from the EU to the country.
"We need to put more pressure on Russia. That is the only way to stop the killing," she said.
The EU has already imposed 19 rounds of sanctions on Russia since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Kallas said yesterday the EU would also add Russia to the bloc's money-laundering blacklist.
In a separate initiative, Estonia's foreign minister called for EU countries to impose a coordinated Schengen visa ban on Russians who have fought in Ukraine.
"They are really bad people, and we need to put together the blacklist of these people," said Margus Tsahkna.
"I cannot imagine how our leaders can explain if peace comes and these hundreds of thousands of ex- combatants are coming to Europe."
Estonia has already taken the first step itself by blacklisting hundreds of fighters from specific Russian military units.
Meanhile, Russian drone strikes killed three people and wounded another person overnight in southern Ukraine, the region's governor said yesterday.
"Unfortunately, two women and a man were killed, and another man was wounded," said Zaporizhzhia Governor Ivan Fedorov.
He added in a post to Telegram that the strikes had destroyed houses and caused fires.
Ukraine has been pummeled by a series of deadly attacks that have severed power in the depths of winter, even as negotiators scrabble for an end to the nearly four-year conflict.
The next round of talks is expected to take place on Sunday, according to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also said follow-up talks would take place this week and that there "might" be a U.S. presence.
Strikes across Ukraine overnight Jan. 27 and early on Jan. 28 killed 16 people across the country, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Six of those died when Russian drones struck a passenger train in eastern Ukraine on Jan. 27.
