(Brussels) The European Union on Wednesday accused Russia of gas “blackmail” after it turned off the tap of “blue gold” to Poland and Bulgaria, while Moscow claimed to have destroyed “a large quantity weapons” supplied by the West to the Ukrainians.
Updated yesterday at 3:20 p.m.
What you need to know
- Ukraine has recognized an advance of Russian forces in the east of the country;
- Gazprom suspended all gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland;
- UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv;
- The EU had “prepared” for this interruption of Russian gas, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen;
- Moscow says it destroyed “large amount” of weapons delivered to Kyiv by US and European countries;
- An arms depot located in a Russian village about twenty kilometers from the border with Ukraine is on fire;
- Russia has been suspended from the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).
- Vladimir Putin warned against any outside intervention in the conflict in Ukraine, promising a “rapid and lightning” response.
- The Ukrainian Defense Minister said he expected “extremely difficult weeks”.
For his part, after meeting President Vladimir Putin in the Russian capital the day before, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres arrived in Ukraine, his first visit to this country since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24. He will travel Thursday to the suburbs of Kyiv, to Boutcha, Irpin and Borodianka, theaters of abuses attributed to the Russian army by the Ukrainians.
As the West steps up efforts to arm Ukrainians against Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that “sheds with a large amount of foreign weapons and ammunition, delivered to Ukrainian forces by the United States and European countries, had been destroyed with Kalibr missiles fired from the sea at the Zaporizhia aluminum plant in southern Ukraine.
The governor of this region, however, provided a firm denial: “No ammunition and arms depot was affected in Zaporijjia”, he retorted, hammering that the affected factory “had not been operational since six years “.
Russian troops are bombing bridges and railways to slow down Western arms deliveries to Ukraine, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister said on Tuesday after the destruction of a strategic bridge linking this country to Romania.
About forty countries met on Tuesday in Germany, around the United States, to coordinate an acceleration of the supply of military equipment that Kyiv is claiming.
“Extremely difficult weeks”
The head of British diplomacy Liz Truss called on Wednesday evening, in a speech in London, for an increase in arms deliveries to Ukraine, stressing that the time is for “courage” against Russia.
“Heavy weapons, tanks, planes – dig into our stockpiles, ramp up production, we have to do all that,” she insisted – calling Vladimir Putin “a desperate rogue operator, who has no interest in morals organizations” – in a speech at the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London.
Vladimir Putin meanwhile again warned against any outside intervention in the conflict in Ukraine, promising a “rapid and lightning” response.
Russian forces, which have been stepping up their offensive in Donbass for two weeks, announced on Wednesday that they had carried out airstrikes on 59 Ukrainian targets.
At the same time, the Ukrainian army has, rare on its part, recognized Russian advances in the east, in the Kharkiv region and in the Donbass, a mining basin partly controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014.
Kyiv admitted that the Russians had taken localities stretching from north to south, suggesting that Moscow wants to take a vice in a large pocket still in the hands of the Ukrainians.
“We have extremely difficult weeks ahead,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov warned in a statement on Wednesday.
According to him, the Russian army, “already aware of its strategic defeat, will try to inflict as much suffering as possible” on the Ukrainian soldiers whom he urged to “hold on”.
“The enemy is bombarding massively”
In Kharkiv, whose northern and eastern districts are less than 5 km from the front line, at least three people died and 15 were injured in shelling, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said, adding: “The Russians continue their artillery and mortar fire against residential areas of Kharkiv and its region”.
Despite the bombs, three young volunteers, Nazar, Alexiï and Oleg, the trunk filled to the brim with food, techno music at full blast, deliver humanitarian aid every day in areas of this city regularly targeted by Russian rockets.
“Our main objective is to feed children and the elderly, they need it the most,” Nazar Tishchenko, 34, told AFP.
At the southern tip of the Donbass, in the strategic port city of Mariupol, besieged and devastated, “the enemy is heavily bombarding and blocking our units near the Azovstal factory”, said in its daily report the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The commander of the 36and Mariupol Marine Brigade Sergei Volyna appealed for help again, saying he had 600 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians with him.
“My message today is: save the Mariupol garrison, carry out an exfiltration operation for us. People will just die here […] civilians die with us […] the city is almost erased from the surface of the Earth, ”he implored in a message relayed on Telegram.
The gas weapon
Outside Ukraine, the Russian group Gazprom announced on Wednesday that it had suspended all gas deliveries to Bulgaria and Poland, ensuring that these two countries had not paid in rubles, as Vladimir Putin has demanded since March.
Denouncing a new “gas blackmail”, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen affirmed that these two member countries of the EU and NATO, very dependent on Russian “blue gold”, were now supplied “by their neighbors in the European Union”.
“This is not blackmail”, but a response to “unfriendly acts”, replied Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, an allusion to the freezing of Russian foreign currency reserves held abroad .
The European ministers responsible for energy will meet on Monday May 2 in an “extraordinary session”, announced Wednesday evening the French Minister responsible for the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, while stressing that “Europeans remain united and united”.
These events come at a time when many chancelleries are worried about the risk of spreading the conflict, after a series of explosions, attributed by Kyiv to Moscow, in the pro-Russian separatist region of Transdniestria, in Moldova.
“We strongly condemn such actions. The Moldovan authorities will take care to prevent the republic from being drawn into a conflict, ”said Moldovan President Maïa Sandu on Tuesday, urging the population to calm down.
On Wednesday, authorities in the separatist territory said a border village hosting a major Russian army ammunition depot had come under fire from Ukraine.
To help Ukraine, the European Commission proposed on Wednesday to suspend all customs duties on products imported from this country into the EU for one year. The proposal still needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the 27 member states.
President Volodymir Zelensky welcomed the proposal adding that Russia is “trying to cause a global crisis” and “chaos” in the global food market.
The United Kingdom announced on Monday that it had taken such a step.
The Ukrainian president said on Twitter on Wednesday that he had spoken with his Indonesian counterpart who invited him to the G20 summit to be held in Bali in November.