Pokrovsk, Ukraine –
Russia cut off natural gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday and threatened to do the same with other countries, drastically escalating its opposition to the West over the war in Ukraine. European leaders have condemned the move as “blackmail”.
A day after the United States and other Western allies promised to speed up more and heavier weapons for Ukraine, the Kremlin is using its most important export as a lever against two of Kyiv’s staunch supporters. Gas prices in Europe jumped after the news.
Tactics could eventually force target nations to resort to gas rationing and could deal another blow to economies suffering from rising prices. At the same time, it could deprive Russia of much-needed income to fund its military efforts.
Western leaders and analysts have described the Kremlin’s move as an attempt to both punish and divide allies, undermining their united support for Ukraine.
Poland has been a major gateway for arms supplies to Ukraine, and this week confirmed that it is sending tanks to the country. He is also an active supporter of sanctions against the Kremlin.
Bulgaria, under a new liberal government that took office last autumn, has severed many of its old ties with Moscow and also backed sanctions against Russia. It is also hosting Western fighters at a new NATO outpost on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.
Gas cuts do not immediately put both sides in serious trouble. Poland, in particular, has been working for many years to find other suppliers, and the continent is entering the summer, making gas less needed by households.
Still, the Kremlin’s interruption and warning that other countries may be next sent shivers of concern to the 27-nation European Union. Germany, the continent’s largest economy, and Italy are among the largest consumers of Russian natural gas in Europe, although they are already taking steps to reduce their dependence on Moscow.
“It is no surprise that the Kremlin is using fossil fuels to try to blackmail us,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Today, the Kremlin has again failed in its efforts to sow division among member states. The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end.
The state-controlled Russian giant Gazprom has said it is excluding the two countries because it refuses to pay in rubles, as President Vladimir Putin has demanded from “unfriendly” countries. The Kremlin has said other countries could also be cut off if they do not agree to payment terms.
Most European countries have publicly opposed Russia’s demand to pay in rubles, but it is unclear how much they are actually facing at the time of the decision so far. Greece’s next planned payment to Gazprom, for example, should be on May 25, and then the government must decide whether to comply.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the Polish parliament that he believed Poland’s support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia were the real reasons for the gas shutdown. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov called the removal blackmail and added: “We will not succumb to such a racket.”
Fatih Birol, executive director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said the outage was a “weapon of energy supply”.
On the battlefield, fighting continued in the eastern part of the country along a largely stationary front line, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) long. Russia claims that its missiles have struck a consignment of weapons that the United States and European countries have delivered to Ukraine.
One person was killed and at least two were injured when rockets hit a residential area in Kharkov, authorities said.
Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence findings, said Russia had made slow progress in the eastern Donbass region, with “minor gains”, including the takeover of villages and small towns south of Izyum and on the outskirts of Rubezhnoye. .
The offensive continues to suffer from poor command, loss of troops and equipment, bad weather and strong Ukrainian resistance, officials said.
They said some Russian troops had been relocated from the ruined southern port city of Mariupol to other parts of Donbass. But some remain in Mariupol to fight Ukrainian forces hiding in the Azovstal steel plant, the city’s last stronghold. About 1,000 civilians are said to be sheltered there with about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders.
Just beyond the Russian border, an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region is on fire early Wednesday after several explosions were heard, the governor said.
Explosions were also reported in Russia’s Kursk region near the Ukrainian border, and authorities in Russia’s Voronezh region said an air defense system had shot down a drone. Earlier this week, an oil depot in the Russian city of Bryansk was engulfed in flames.
Adviser to Ukrainian President Mykhailo Podoliak hinted at the country’s involvement in the fires, saying in a Telegram post that “karma (is) something serious.”
In other developments:
– The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi said that the level of security at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which is now under Russian occupation in Ukraine, is like a “flashing red light” as his organization tries in vain to obtain access to Zaporozhye power plant for repair.
– Just as tensions are rising, Moscow and Washington have dramatically exchanged prisoners, exchanging a Marine veteran imprisoned in Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving a long sentence in the United States.
With the help of Western weapons, Ukrainian forces unexpectedly managed to overwhelm Russian forces and thwart their attempt to take Kyiv. Moscow now says its focus is on capturing Donbass, Ukraine’s most Russian-speaking industrial center.
On Wednesday, the provocative Putin promised that Russia would achieve its military goals, telling parliament: “All the tasks of the special military operation we are conducting in Donbass and Ukraine, which began on February 24, will be unconditionally fulfilled.”
Simone Taliapietra, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, said Russia’s goal in halting the flow of gas was to “divide and rule” – to pit European countries against each other as they strive for energy.
Poland receives about 45% of its gas from Russia, but is much more dependent on coal, and said it is well prepared for the outage. It has enough gas in storage and will soon benefit from two pipelines that will be included, said analyst Emily McClain of Rystad Energy.
While Bulgaria receives more than 90 percent of its gas from Russia, it could increase imports from Azerbaijan, and the pipeline to Greece will be completed later this year.
Europe is not without its own leverage, as at current prices it pays about $ 400 million a day to Russia for gas, money that Putin would lose in the event of a complete outage.
In theory, Russia could sell oil elsewhere – to India and China, for example. But the pipeline network from the vast deposits of the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia to Europe is not connected to the pipelines to China. And Russia has only a limited capacity to export liquefied natural gas by ship.
“The move that Russia has made today is basically a move in which Russia is hurting itself,” von der Layen said.
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Gambrell reports from Lviv, Ukraine, and Gera reports from Warsaw, Poland. Associated Press journalists Jill Lawless in London, Juras Karmanau in Lviv, David Keaton in Kyiv, Alexander Stashevsky in Chernobyl, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov and PA officials around the world contributed to the report.
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