POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) – Russia on Wednesday cut off natural gas to NATO members Poland and Bulgaria and threatened to do the same to other countries, using its key export to do what was seen as an attempt to punish the West and to split support for Ukraine.
The move, condemned as “blackmail” by European leaders, marked a dramatic escalation in the economic war of sanctions and counter-sanctions that has been unfolding alongside fighting on the battlefield.
The tactic, launched a day after the US and other Western allies pledged to supply more and heavier weapons to Ukraine, could ultimately force affected nations to ration gas and could hurt economies suffering from rising Prices suffer, deal another blow. At the same time, it could deprive Russia of much-needed revenue to fund its war effort.
Poland has been a key gateway for supplying arms to Ukraine and confirmed this week that it is sending tanks to the country. Just hours before Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom acted, Poland announced a new set of sanctions against the company and other Russian companies and oligarchs.
Under a liberal government that took office last fall, Bulgaria severed many of its old ties with Moscow and also supported punitive measures against the Kremlin. It has also based Western fighter jets at a new NATO outpost on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.
The gas cuts won’t immediately get the two countries into big trouble. Poland in particular has been working to bring in other suppliers for many years, and the continent is heading into the summer, making gas less important to households.
In addition, Russian gas deliveries to both Poland and Bulgaria should be stopped this year anyway.
But the shutdown and the Kremlin’s warning that other countries could be next gave the 27 nations of the European Union shivers. Germany, the continent’s largest economy, and Italy are among Europe’s biggest consumers of Russian natural gas, although they too have taken steps to reduce their dependence on Moscow.
“It’s no surprise that the Kremlin is trying to blackmail us with fossil fuels,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Today the Kremlin failed again in its attempt to sow divisions between member states. The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end.”
Gazprom said it shut down the two countries for refusing to pay in rubles, as President Vladimir Putin has demanded from “unfriendly” nations. The Kremlin said other countries could be cut off if they don’t agree to the payment deal.
Most European countries have publicly opposed Russia’s demand for the ruble, but it’s not clear how many have actually faced the moment of decision. For example, Greece’s next scheduled payment to Gazprom is due on May 25, and the government will then have to decide whether to meet it.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told his country’s parliament that he believes Poland’s support for Ukraine – and the new sanctions imposed by Warsaw on Tuesday – are the real reasons for the gas shutdown.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov called the suspension blackmail, adding: “We will not succumb to such a racket.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia sees gas as a weapon of political blackmail and “sees a united Europe as the goal”.
On the battlefield, fighting continued in the east of the country along a largely static front line some 300 miles (480 kilometers) long.
Russia claimed its missiles hit a number of weapons supplied to Ukraine by the US and European nations. One person was killed and at least two injured when rockets hit a residential area in Kharkiv.
Western officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence findings, said Russia has been making slow progress in the Donbass region, with “marginal gains,” including capturing villages and small towns south of Izyum and on the outskirts of Rubizhne .
Serhiy Haidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, acknowledged that Russia’s near-constant bombardment has made small strides in advancing on Rubishne, but that Ukrainian troops are fighting back and only retreating when there is nothing left to defend.
“There’s no point staying in an area that has been shelled so many times that every meter is known exactly,” he said.
Western officials said some Russian troops have been moved to other parts of Donbass from the devastated southern port city of Mariupol. However, some remain in Mariupol to fight against Ukrainian troops holed up at the Azovstal Steel Works, the city’s last stronghold. About 1,000 civilians are said to have taken shelter there, along with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian defenders.
“The situation is very difficult. There are huge problems with water and food,” Serhii Volynskyi, commander of the naval unit at the facility, said in a Facebook video message. He said hundreds of militants and civilians were wounded and in need of medical attention, including children, the elderly and the disabled.
Just across the border in Russia, a munitions depot in the Belgorod region was on fire after several explosions were heard, the governor said. Explosions were also reported in Russia’s Kursk region near the border, and authorities in Russia’s Voronezh region said an air defense system shot down a drone.
Earlier this week, a fire engulfed an oil storage facility in the Russian city of Bryansk.
Hinting at the country’s involvement in the fires, Ukraine’s presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in a Telegram post that “karma is a hard thing”.
For other developments:
— The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said the security level at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, now under Russian occupation in Ukraine, is like a “red flash” as his organization tries in vain to gain access to the Zaporizhia power plant for repairs.
– Amid rising tensions over gas, Moscow and Washington conducted a dramatic prisoner swap, swapping a Navy veteran jailed in Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker who is serving a lengthy sentence in the US
With the help of Western weapons, Ukrainian forces managed to thwart an attempt by Russian forces to storm Kyiv. Moscow now says its focus is conquering the Donbass, Ukraine’s predominantly Russian-speaking industrial heartland.
A defiant Putin vowed that Russia will achieve its military goals, telling parliament: “All the tasks of the special military operation that we are conducting in Donbass and Ukraine, which was launched on February 24, will be fulfilled unconditionally.”
Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, said Russia’s aim in cutting off the flow of gas was to “divide and rule” – pitting European countries against each other as they look for energy.
While Poland gets about 45% of its gas from Russia, it relies mostly on coal and said it was well prepared for the shutdown. It has plentiful gas reserves and will soon benefit from two pipelines coming online, Rystad Energy analyst Emily McClain said.
Bulgaria gets over 90% of its gas from Russia but could increase imports from Azerbaijan and a pipeline link to Greece is due to be completed later this year.
Dobrin Todorov, a resident of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, said the suspension was not a major problem.
“Ultimately, the choice is between freedom and dignity or gas, the answer is clearly in favor of freedom and dignity,” Todorov said, adding that a shortage of gas “cannot be compared to the hardship and difficulties that the Ukrainian People are currently suffering.”
Europe is not without its own clout, as it pays Russia about $400 million a day for gas, money that Putin would lose if there were a full shutdown. In theory, Russia can sell oil elsewhere – to India and China, for example. But it sometimes lacks the necessary pipelines and has limited capacity to export gas by ship.
“The step that Russia took today is basically a step where Russia harms itself,” von der Leyen said.
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Gambrell reported from Lemberg, Ukraine and Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland. Associated Press journalists Jill Lawless in London, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, David Keyton in Kyiv, Oleksandr Stashevskyi in Chernobyl, Mstyslav Chernov in Kharkiv, and AP staffers around the world contributed to this report.
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