April 27, 20224:04 AM GMT+7
By Marek Strzelecki, Phil Stewart and Pavel Polityuk
A view shows gas wells at Bovanenkovo gas field owned by
Gazprom on the Arctic Yamal peninsula, Russia May 21, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim
Shemetov
WARSAW/ RAMSTEIN AIR
BASE, Germany/KYIV, April 26 (Reuters) - Kyiv accused Russia of blackmailing
Europe by cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria as the crisis in
Ukraine deepened, with tensions surging in nearby Moldova and Moscow warning
the West to back off.
NATO member and
staunch Kremlin opponent Poland is among the European countries seeking the
toughest possible sanctions against Russia for its invasion. Fellow alliance
member Bulgaria is almost completely reliant on Russian gas imports.
Poland's state-owned
PGNiG (PGN.WA) said supplies from energy giant
Gazprom (GAZP.MM) via Ukraine and Belarus will be
cut at 0800CET (0600GMT) on Wednesday, but Warsaw said it did not need to draw
on reserves and its gas storage was 76% full.
"The gas system
in Poland is balanced and customers can feel safe," Minister in Charge of
Energy Security Piotr Naimski said.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin has called on "unfriendly" countries to pay for gas
imports in roubles, a move only a few buyers have implemented so far.
Gazprom said it had
not suspended supplies to Poland but that Warsaw had to pay for gas from it in
line with its new "order of payments." It declined to comment
regarding Bulgaria.
Andriy Yermak, the
chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia was
"beginning the gas blackmail of Europe".
"Russia is trying
to shatter the unity of our allies. Russia is also proving that energy
resources are a weapon. That is why the EU needs to be united and impose an
embargo on energy resources, depriving the Russians of their energy
weapons."
Russia's invasion of
Ukraine, launched on Feb. 24, has left thousands dead or injured, reduced towns
and cities to rubble, and forced more than 5 million people to flee abroad.
Moscow calls its
actions a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from
fascists.
Ukraine and the West
call this a false pretext for an unprovoked war to seize territory in a move
that has sparked fears of wider conflict in Europe unseen since World War Two.
Russia's ambassador to
the United States has warned Washington to stop sending arms to Ukraine, saying
that large Western deliveries of weapons were inflaming the situation and would
lead to more losses.
Russian foreign
minister Sergei Lavrov warned late on Monday that: "NATO, in essence, is
engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War
means war," saying the risks of nuclear conflict should not be
underestimated.
U.S. Pentagon
spokesman John Kirby said there was no reason for the conflict in Ukraine to
escalate to nuclear war. "A nuclear war cannot be won and it shouldn't be
fought," he said.
Ukraine also accused
Moscow on Tuesday of trying to drag Moldova's breakaway region of
Transdniestria into the conflict after authorities in the Moscow-backed region
said they had been targeted by a series of attacks.
Reuters could not
independently verify the accounts. The Kremlin, which has troops and
peacekeepers in the region, said it was seriously concerned.
Meanwhile fighting continued
in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Russia's defence
ministry said its forces had "liberated" the entire Kherson region in
southern Ukraine and parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions,
Interfax news agency reported.
If confirmed, that
would represent a significant Russian advance.
One of President
Vladimir Putin's closest allies, Nikolai Patrushev, said Ukraine was spiralling
towards a collapse into "several states" due to what he cast as a
U.S. attempt to use Kyiv to undermine Russia.
U.S. Defense Secretary
Lloyd Austin, welcoming officials from more than 40 countries to Ramstein Air
Base in Germany, headquarters of U.S. air power in Europe, said: "Nations
from around the world stand united in our resolve to support Ukraine in its
fight against Russia's imperial aggression."
Germany, which had
come under pressure after refusing Ukrainian pleas for heavy weapons, announced
it would send Gepard light tanks with anti-aircraft guns. read more
Mark Milley, chairman
of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters while flying to Tuesday's
meeting in Germany that the next few weeks in Ukraine would be "very, very
critical".
"They need
continued support in order to be successful on the battlefield," he said.
United Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in Moscow on Tuesday, made a proposal on
how to evacuate people from the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, involving
a "Humanitarian Contact Group" of Russia, Ukraine and U.N. officials.
Ukraine said no
corridors were operating on Tuesday due to continued fighting.
The United Nations
said Putin had agreed "in principle" during talks with Guterres to
U.N. and Red Cross involvement in evacuating civilians from the Azovstal steel
plant in Mariupol, scene of the worst fighting of the war.
Authorities in
Transdniestria, an unrecognised sliver of land in Moldova bordering
southwestern Ukraine that has been occupied by Russian troops since the 1990s,
said explosions had damaged two radio masts that broadcast in Russian and that
one of its military units had been attacked.
It provided few
details, but blamed Ukraine, while Moldova's pro-Western President Maia Sandu blamed
the "escalation attempts" on "pro-war" factions in
Transdniestria. read more
Moldova, an ex-Soviet
republic with close cultural ties to NATO member Romania, expressed alarm last
week after a top Russian general said Moscow aims to forge a path through
Ukraine to Transdniestria.
Additional reporting
by Reuters journalists; Writing by Peter Graff, Gareth Jones and Costas Pitas;
Editing by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Rosalba O'Brien
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/russia-warns-serious-nuclear-war-risks-should-not-be-underestimated-2022-04-25/
No comments:
Post a Comment