Russia restricts gas supplies

KYIV: Moscow cut off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday, following bombings in a breakaway area of neighbouring Moldova that prompted Kyiv to accuse Moscow of attempting to extend the Ukraine war into Europe.

Gazprom, Russia’s largest energy company, said it has halted supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, marking Moscow’s latest deployment of gas as a weapon in a confrontation that has already lasted three months and claimed hundreds of lives.

Explosions targeting the state security ministry, a radio tower, and a military unit in neighbouring Moldova’s Transnistria (held by Moscow’s forces for decades) occurred last week in response to a Kremlin commander’s accusations that Russian speakers in the nation were being repressed.

This has sparked suspicions that Moldova could be the next target in Russia’s march into Europe, as Moscow did when it launched its murderous invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

“Russia wants to destabilise the Transnistrian region,” Mykhaylo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential aide, wrote on Twitter.

“If Ukraine falls, tomorrow Russian troops will be at Chisinau’s gates,” he said, referring to Moldova’s capital.

The US expressed similar worries, although it refrained from endorsing Kyiv’s claim that Russia was to blame.

Ned Price, a spokesperson for the State Department, told reporters, “We fully support Moldova’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”

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