European Leaders Call Russian Gas Cutoff As ‘Blackmail’

Pokrovsky, Ukraine (AP) – European leaders have described Russia’s decision to cut natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria as “blackmail”, saying cuts and warnings to the Kremlin could reduce supplies to other countries that they have failed attempts. divide the West. Support Ukraine.

Russia’s move on Wednesday to use its key exports as leverage marked a dramatic escalation in an economic war of sanctions and counter-sanctions that developed along with battlefield battles.

Tactics against the EU and two NATO members could force target countries to act rationally and face another blow to economies experiencing rising prices. At the same time, it could deprive Russia of the revenue it needs to finance the fighting.

Poland is the main gateway for arms supplies to Ukraine and this week it was confirmed that it is sending tanks to the country. Hours before the entry into force of Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, Poland announced a new series of sanctions against the company and other Russian companies and oligarchs.

Bulgaria, under the new liberal government in office last fall, has severed many of its old ties with Moscow and has also supported punitive measures against the Kremlin. It also hosted Western fighter jets at a new NATO outpost on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.

The immediate gas cessation does not put the two countries in serious difficulty. Poland, in particular, has been working for years to find other suppliers, and the continent is going over in the summer, making gas less necessary for families.

Furthermore, Russia’s gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria are expected to end by the end of this year.

However, the cuts and the Kremlin warn that other countries could cause the next earthquake of concern in the EU-27. Germany, the continent’s largest economy, and Italy are among the largest European consumers of Russian natural gas, although they are also taking steps to reduce their reliance on Moscow.

“It is not surprising that the Kremlin is using fossil fuels to try to blackmail us,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Now the Kremlin has once again failed in its attempt to sow discord among its member states. Russia’s era of fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end.

Gazprom said it closed the two countries because they refused to pay the ruble, because President Vladimir Putin questioned the “enemy” countries. The Kremlin said other countries could stop if they do not accept the payment deal.

Most European countries publicly reject Russia’s request for rubles, but do not know how many are actually facing at the moment of the decision. Greece’s next scheduled payment to Gazprom, for example, will have to be paid on May 25, and the government will have to decide whether next or not.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told his country’s parliament that he believed Poland’s support for Ukraine – and the new sanctions imposed by Warsaw on Tuesday – was the real reason for the gas cut.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov called for the suspension on blackmail, adding: “We will not follow such a racket.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia sees gas as a weapon of political blackmail and “sees a united Europe as a target”.

Battlefield battles continued in the east of the country, mainly along the static front line, for approximately 300 miles (480 kilometers).

Russia said its missiles hit a shipment of weapons supplied to Ukraine by the United States and European countries. One person was killed and two others were injured when rockets exploded in a residential area of ​​Kharkov.

Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the report, said Russia had made slow progress in the eastern Donbas region, with “small advantages” including villages and small towns south of Izium and outside Rubizne. .

Sergi Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, acknowledged that Russia had made little progress in its almost constant bombing of Rubizhen, but Ukrainian troops resisted and retreated only when there was no one to defend.

“It makes no sense to stay in the area where they are so often hit that every meter is known,” he said.

Maxim, the commander of the Ukrainian tank in the Donbas, who did not give his last name, explained the reasons for the ability of the Ukrainian forces to contain the best Russian military equipment: “The force is not in the tank; “The power is in the people”.

Western officials said some Russian troops had been moved from the southern port city of Mariupol to other parts of the Donbas. But some remain in Mariupol to fight Ukrainian forces trapped at the Azovstal steel plant, the city’s last stronghold. About 1,000 civilians are said to have fled there, along with about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders.

“The situation is very difficult. “There are major water and food problems,” Sergei Volinsky, head of the naval unit at the plant, said in a Facebook video. He said hundreds of militants and civilians were injured and in need of medical attention, while the children inside were elderly and disabled.

In the Black Sea port city of Kherson, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the war began, a series of explosions exploded near a television tower late Wednesday, temporarily disrupting Russian channels, according to in Ukrainian and Russian press organizations.

Across Russia’s border of Donbass, an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region caught fire after several explosions were heard, the governor said. Explosions were also reported near the border in Russia’s Kursk region, and authorities in Russia’s Voronezh region said the air defense system shot down a drone.

An oil depot in the Russian city of Bryansk was engulfed in fire last week.

Adviser to the President of Ukraine Mikhail Podolyak hinted at the country’s involvement in the fires and said in a Telegram post that “karma (is) a difficult thing.”

With the help of Western weapons, the Ukrainian forces succeeded. Moscow now says its goal is to take over Donbass, Ukraine’s predominantly Russian -speaking industrial center.

The rebellious Putin promised that Russia would achieve its military goals and told parliament: “All the activities of the special military operation that we are conducting in the Donbas and Ukraine since February 24 will be fulfilled unconditionally”.

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Reported by Gambrel from Lviv, Ukraine and Gera – from Warsaw, Poland. Associated Press journalists Jill Lowles in London, Jura Carmanau in Lviv, David Keaton in Kiev, Alexander Stashevsky in Chernobyl, Mstislav Chernov in Kharkov, and AP staff around the world contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ucraina