US consumers are already feeling the pressure. In California, prices for some types of gas have hovered around $6 in recent days; on Tuesday, the state average was over $5.
Republicans on Tuesday largely supported Mr Biden’s decision to shut down Russian oil, giving the president a rare moment of bipartisan support. But while they did, many Republicans again grabbed high prices at the pump to criticize him and his party.
“Democrats want to blame Russia for rising prices,” California Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday. “But the truth is that their out-of-touch policy is why we’re here in the first place.”
In his comments, Mr Biden called the decision a moral one, aimed at further crippling Mr Putin’s economy as Russian troops continued their brutal bombing of civilians in several cities and suburbs of Ukraine after two grueling weeks of war in Europe. continue.
“Ukrainian people have inspired the world and I mean that literally,” Biden said. “They have inspired the world with their courage, their patriotism, their defiant determination to live free. Putin’s war has caused tremendous suffering and unnecessary loss of life for women, children and everyone in Ukraine.”
He added: “Putin seems determined to continue on his murderous path no matter the cost.”
Fighting continued in Ukraine on Tuesday as humanitarian officials reported that two million refugees fled the country in search of safety. But casualties increased as the evacuations, though supposed “green corridors” continued to come under fire.
About 2,000 civilians managed to escape Irpin, a suburb just northwest of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, which has been without water, power and heat for days due to fierce fighting in the area. In the war-ravaged city of Sumy, east of Kiev, one humanitarian corridor lasted long enough for hundreds of civilians to escape in a convoy of buses led by the Red Cross.