Opinion: The EU must get a grip;

"I don't blame any of you. The blame for everything that is happening lies solely with the Russian state," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the start of a video message to EU leaders in Brussels, his manner unusually mild. All the same, the message made it abundantly clear what is at stake for his country.

Since the EU's previous, the fifth sanctions package, 74 children were killed, and numerous hospitals and schools reduced to rubble by the Russian army, Zelenskyy said. So why, he mused, can Russia still make almost a billion euros a day selling energy?

Really, why? The Europeans argued about an oil embargo against Russia for weeks. The unity the bloc had demonstrated in the first weeks of the war seemed to be over. Instead, Europe was caught up in an embarrassing, never ending story.