KYIV: The European Union has warned Russia against giving in to “blackmail” for its support of kyiv after the Kremlin cut gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland.
Wednesday’s warning came before UN chief Antonio Guterres arrived in kyiv to meet Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky following talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
Putin issued his own warning the same day, saying that if Western forces intervene in Ukraine, they will face a “lightning-fast” military response.
“We have all the tools for this, which no one else can claim to have,” the Russian leader told lawmakers, implicitly referring to Moscow’s ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal.
“We will not brag about it: we will use them, if necessary. And I want everyone to know it,” he said. “We have already made all the decisions on this.”
The dire threats came as Moscow claimed to have carried out a missile strike in southern Ukraine to destroy a “huge batch” of Western-supplied weapons.
As the war, which has already claimed thousands of lives, entered its third month, kyiv admitted that Russian forces had made gains in the east.
Russia’s military offensive saw it capture a number of villages in the Donbas region, now the focus of its invasion.
And in its economic standoff with the West, Moscow cut off gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, two EU and NATO members that back Ukraine in the conflict.
However, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that Poland and Bulgaria are now receiving gas from their EU neighbors.
‘Blackmail’
She described the announcement by Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom as “another provocation from the Kremlin.”
“It is not surprising that the Kremlin uses fossil fuels to try to blackmail us… Our response will be immediate, united and coordinated.
“Both Poland and Bulgaria now receive gas from their EU neighbors,” he said. “The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe will come to an end.”
EU officials said energy ministers from across the bloc will meet in an extraordinary session on Monday to discuss the situation.
European powers have imposed massive sanctions on Russia since Putin’s decision to invade his neighbor, while sending weapons to Ukraine’s defenders.
But they have moved slowly to hit Moscow’s vast exports, with many EU members, particularly industrial giant Germany, relying on Russian energy to keep their lights on.
Putin has tried to ratchet up the pressure by insisting that Russia will only accept ruble payments for gasoline, hoping to force his enemies to prop up their currency.
Gazprom announced the cutoff of gas supplies to both Poland and highly dependent Bulgaria, saying it had not received payment in rubles from the two EU members.
But von der Leyen said that “around 97 percent” of all EU contracts explicitly stipulate payments in euros or dollars, and warned importing companies not to pay in rubles.
“This would be a sanctions violation,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has sought to provide economic support to kyiv by proposing a suspension of import tariffs on Ukrainian goods, although the idea has yet to be approved in a vote by the bloc’s 27 members.
President Zelensky welcomed the plan, saying Russia was “trying to provoke a global price crisis” and cause “chaos” in the world food market.
An IMF report released on Wednesday said the war had “significantly” impacted the Middle East and North Africa, with the crisis dealing a heavy blow to low-income countries facing rising inflation fueled by rising food and fuel costs.
‘Destruction and painful casualties’
The first phase of the Russian invasion failed to reach kyiv or topple the Zelensky government after meeting stiff Ukrainian resistance reinforced by Western weapons.
Since then, the campaign has refocused on seizing the east and south of the country while increasing the use of long-range missiles against western and central Ukraine.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov predicted “extremely difficult weeks” for the country amid “destruction and painful casualties” during the offensive.
In Kharkiv, whose northern and eastern districts are less than five kilometers from the front lines, at least three people were killed and 15 wounded in the shelling, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said on Wednesday.
Defenders of the besieged Azovstal factory in the strategic port city of Mariupol described massive shelling, with Sergey Volyna of the 36th Marine Brigade calling for the extraction of the 600 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians he says remain trapped. over there.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had destroyed a “large batch” of weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries.
Russia shelled hangars at an aluminum plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia with “high-precision, long-range, sea-based Kalibr missiles,” the ministry said.
Local authorities denied weapons were stored at the factory, which they said had not been operational for six years.
Tensions are also rising in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that borders southwestern Ukraine.
Pro-Russian separatists in the area claimed shots were fired across the border into a village hosting a Russian weapons depot after drones flew in from Ukraine.
‘Dangerous deterioration’
The unrecognized region has reported a series of explosions in recent days that it called “terrorist attacks”, prompting kyiv to accuse Moscow of trying to expand the war to Europe.
Moldova’s Foreign Minister, Nicu Popescu, described the events as a “dangerous deterioration of the situation.”
Popescu said the Transnistrian authorities announced that they would prevent men of fighting age from leaving the region.
Russia’s targeting of Western-supplied weapons came as the United States and Europe began heeding Zelensky’s call for more firepower.
Western allies remain wary of being drawn into a war with Russia, but have increased military support as Ukraine has maintained its fierce resistance.
In a Wednesday night speech from London, UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss made a new call for increased arms deliveries to Ukraine, including heavy weapons, tanks and planes.
The UN tourism body added to Russia’s isolation on the international stage earlier in the day, as a majority of its 159 members voted to suspend it from the agency.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden will make remarks Thursday on “support for Ukrainians defending their country and their freedom against Russia’s brutal war,” the White House said.
promises of justice
Several countries and organizations, including the United Nations, pledged on Wednesday to bring to justice the perpetrators of any war crimes committed during the invasion of Ukraine.
Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Clooney told an informal UN Security Council meeting that she feared “politicians ask for justice but don’t deliver it.”
“My fear is that you get busy and distracted and that every day there’s a little less coverage of the war and people get a little more numb,” Clooney said.
UN Secretary-General Guterres’ trip to kyiv on Thursday is expected to include visits to the suburbs of Bucha, Irpin and Borodianka, sites of alleged war crimes attributed to Russian soldiers.