TORETSK, Ukraine (AP) – The United States on Tuesday pushed its allies to move “heaven and earth” to keep Kyiv well-armed as Russian forces opened fire on eastern and southern Ukraine amid growing fears that the war could spill over the country’s borders.
For the second day in a row, explosions rocked the Trans-Dniester separatist region of neighboring Moldova, killing two powerful radio antennas near the Ukrainian border. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Ukraine almost blamed Russia.
In other events, Poland and Bulgaria said the Kremlin had cut off natural gas supplies to both NATO countries since Wednesday, the first such action since the war. Both nations have refused Russia’s demands to pay in rubles.
Two months after the battle, Western weapons helped Ukraine delay the Russian invasion, but the country’s leaders said they quickly needed more support.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin convened a meeting Tuesday with officials from about 40 countries at the U.S. Air Force Base in Ramstein, Germany, and said he was on track to provide more assistance.
“This gathering reflects the galvanized world,” Austin said, adding that he wanted officials to leave the meeting “with a common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s short-term security requirements, because we will continue to move heaven and earth so we can meet them.”
After unexpectedly fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces thwarted Russia’s attempt to take over Ukraine’s capital, Moscow now says its focus is on taking over Donbass, Russia’s predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
In the small town of Toretsk in the Donbass, residents are struggling to survive, collecting rainwater for washing and fervently hoping to end the fighting.
“It’s bad. Very bad. Hopeless,” said Andrei Cheromushkin. “You feel so helpless that you don’t know what to do or not. Because if you want to do something, you need money, and now you don’t have money.”
Russian progress and heavy fighting in Donbass have been reported, with one city, Kremina, apparently falling after days of street-to-street fighting, according to the British military.
In the devastated southern port city of Mariupol, authorities said Russian forces had carried out 35 airstrikes on the Azovstal steel plant in the past 24 hours. The factory is the last known fortress of Ukrainian fighters in the city. About 1,000 civilians are said to be sheltered there with about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders.
“Russia has drastically increased its strikes in the last 24 hours and is using heavy bunker bombs,” said Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor. “The number of wounded will be clear once the ruins are cleared.
He also accused Russian forces of shelling a route they had proposed as a corridor to escape the steel plant.
Beyond Mariupol, local authorities said at least nine people had been killed and several others injured in Russian attacks on cities to the east and south. Pavlo Kirilenko, governor of the Donetsk region of Donbass, told the Telegram news release that Russian forces “continue to deliberately fire on civilians and destroy critical infrastructure.”
Russian missile fire also knocked down a strategic railway bridge on the route connecting the southern Ukrainian port region with neighboring NATO member Romania, Ukrainian authorities said. No casualties were reported.
Ukraine also said Russian forces had shelled Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city in the northeast, outside of Donbass, but was seen as key to Russia’s apparent desire to encircle Ukrainian troops in Donbass from the north, east and south.
Ukrainian forces retaliated in the southern Kherson region.
The attack on the bridge near Odessa – along with a series of strikes at key railway stations the day before – appears to mark a major change in Russia’s approach. So far, Moscow has spared strategic bridges, perhaps hoping to keep them for its own use in the conquest of Ukraine. But now it seems to be trying to thwart Ukraine’s efforts to relocate troops and supplies.
The southern coasts of Ukraine and Moldova have been on the brink since a senior Russian military official said last week that the Kremlin’s goal is to protect not only eastern Ukraine but the entire south so as to pave the way for Transnistria.
It was unclear who was behind the Transnistrian bombings, but the attacks raised fears that Russia was creating problems to create a pretext for invading Transnistria or using the region as another starting point for Ukraine’s attack.
About 1,500 Russian troops are based in Trans-Dniester, a long, narrow strip of land with about 470,000 people on the Ukrainian border.
With a potentially key battle for the East under way, the United States and its NATO allies are struggling to deliver artillery and other heavy weapons in time to make a difference.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her government would deliver self-propelled Gepard armored anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is facing growing pressure to send heavy weapons such as tanks and other armored vehicles.
Austin noted that more than 30 allies and partners have joined the United States in sending military aid to Ukraine and that more than $ 5 billion worth of equipment has been provided.
The US Secretary of Defense said the war had weakened the Russian military, adding: “We would like to make sure that they do not have the same type of ability to harass their neighbors as we saw at the beginning of this conflict.
A senior Kremlin official, Nikolai Patrushev, warned that “Western policy and the regime he controls in Kyiv will only be the disintegration of Ukraine into several states.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that if the Western flow of weapons continues, talks aimed at ending the fighting will not yield any results.
A day earlier, Lavrov accused NATO of “adding fuel to the fire” by supporting Ukraine. He also warned against provoking World War III and said the threat of nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated”.
“Nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in an interview with CNN. “This kind of rhetoric is obviously not required in the current scenario. What he is calling for is Mr Putin to end this war.
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting also continued. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and criticized Russia’s military action in Ukraine as a gross violation of its neighbor’s territorial integrity.
Guterres called on Russia to allow the evacuation of civilians detained at the Mariupol steel plant. Putin said Ukrainian troops used civilians at the plant as a shield and did not allow them to leave.
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Gambrell reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalist Yuras Karmanau of Lviv, David Keaton of Kyiv, Alexander Stashevsky of Chernobyl, Mstislav Chernov of Kharkov and PA officials from around the world contributed to the report.
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