Ukrainian president Zelenskyy said European countries still buying Russian gas and oil are making money 'out of blood'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said European countries are making money out of blood.

Russia has been hit with a series of sanctions by the West, including restrictions on its energy exports. The European Union has a heavy reliance on Russian natural gas and oil.

Zelenskyy said that they don't understand how you can make money out of blood.

He continued, "Unfortunately, this is what some countries have been doing."

Hungary and Germany are two of the biggest consumers of Russian oil and gas. They have not accepted imposing sanctions on Russian energy.

Zelenskyy said that they need to talk with the countries about how they can be different in their attitudes to the oil embargo.

Despite pressure from the EU, Russian natural gas has continued to flow through major lines.

Russia has the largest natural gas reserves in the world and is the third biggest oil producer.

In March, US President Joe Biden promised to ban Russian energy imports. According to the Energy Information Administration, the US has little reliance on Russian energy supplies and only 8% of its refined product imports came from Russia.

Europe gets 40% of its natural gas from Russia and 30% of its oil.

The European Commission said it could reduce EU demand for Russian gas by two-thirds by the end of the year. The EU has agreed to stop imports of Russian coal later this year, but hasn't announced an embargo on gas or oil.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, said in late March that it expected to cut Russian oil imports by the middle of the year and be independent by the end of the year. It predicted a quicker trajectory for coal imports.

It's harder to wind down its reliance on Russian gas. According to the federal network agency, Germany got two-thirds of its gas imports from Russia in 2020. If Russian gas were halted immediately, Germany could lose 220 billion euros over the next two years, according to economists.

The economy minister said that Germany could become independent of Russian gas by 2024. Germany halted plans for the Nord Stream 2 line in February.

Russia's finance ministry said last week that revenue from the country's oil and gas sales in March was 38% lower than it had initially forecast, despite a surge in the price of both fuels in the past couple of months.