Russia cuts Poland, Bulgaria gas over Ukraine

Moscow’s latest use of energy as a weapon in a conflict that has now dragged into its third month and claimed thousands of lives.

Children on Tuesday stage a mock recreation of Kyiv’s Friendship of Peoples monument, depicting a Ukrainian and Russian worker holding aloft together a Soviet order of friendship, after the 8m statue’s demolition on the orders of the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. Picture: Reuters

Russia halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday, after blasts in a breakaway region of neighbouring Moldova led Kyiv to accuse Moscow of seeking to expand the Ukraine war further into Europe.

The Russian energy giant Gazprom said it had cut supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, in Moscow’s latest use of gas as a weapon in a conflict that has now dragged into its third month and claimed thousands of lives.

Explosions this week targeting the state security ministry, a radio tower and military unit in neighbouring Moldova’s region of Transnistria – occupied by Moscow’s forces for decades – followed a Kremlin commander’s claims that Russian speakers in the country were being oppressed.

That triggered alarm that Moldova could be Russia’s next target in its push into Europe, with Moscow having exploited similar fears after launching its bloody invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

“Russia wants to destabilise the Transnistrian region,” Mykhaylo Podolyak, a Ukraine presidential aide, wrote on Twitter.

“If Ukraine falls, tomorrow Russian troops will be at Chisinau’s gates,” he said, referring to Moldova’s capital.

The US echoed similar concerns – though stopped short of backing Kyiv’s contention that Russia was responsible.

“We fully support Moldova’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has been lobbying for heavier firepower to push back the Russian advance now focused on the eastern region of Donbas.

Western allies are wary of being drawn into an outright war with Russia, but Washington pledged on Tuesday at a summit to move “heaven and earth” to enable Ukraine to emerge victorious.

“Ukraine clearly believes it can win and so does everyone here,” US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told 40 allies gathered at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

With arms flowing into Ukraine, Britain will on Wednesday urge Kyiv’s allies to “ramp up” military production including tanks and planes to help Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is set to call for a “new approach” to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We must be prepared for the long haul and double down on our support for Ukraine,” she will say, according to pre-released remarks. “Heavy weapons, tanks, aeroplanes – digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this.

“There must be nowhere for Putin to go to fund this appalling war.”

Ms Truss will also urge Europe to cut off Russian energy imports “once and for all” – a move that would deprive Moscow of a key source of leverage over its dependent western neighbours.

Underlining that precarity, energy giant Gazprom said on Wednesday that it had informed Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz and Poland’s PGNiG about the “suspension of gas supplies from April 27 until payment is made” in roubles.

Mr Putin last month said Russia would only accept payment for deliveries in its national currency.

Fighting continues to rage across Ukraine’s east, Kyiv’s defence ministry said, announcing on Wednesday that Russian forces had pushed deeper into the east of the country and captured several villages as part of its offensive to take control of Donbas.

In the south, two Russian missiles struck the industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, which has welcomed many civilians fleeing Mariupol, regional authorities said.

Russian forces are expected to soon advance on the city, which is located near Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.

Ukraine officials said there was fighting all along the frontlines in the Donetsk region, and that resistance in the Azovstal factory in the besieged port city of Mariupol was still holding out.

The country’s best-known singer Sviatoslav Vakarchuk made a morale-boosting visit to the eastern front, where a military press officer admitted the situation was difficult.

The UN’s refugee agency said it now expected more than eight million Ukrainians to flee their country, with nearly 5.3 million already out, and that $US1.85bn would be needed to host them in neighbouring countries.

In a meeting with Mr Putin, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for Moscow and Kyiv to work together to set up aid and evacuation corridors. He also called for an independent investigation into “possible war crimes” in Ukraine. “I am concerned about the repeated reports of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and possible war crimes,” he said. “And they require independent investigation for ­effective accountability.”

AFP