Chris Lange, FISM News
Russia has announced that it will stop supplying natural gas to Bulgaria and Poland because they refuse to pay in rubles, in a move that is sure to affect an already precarious global supply chain.
Moscow has demanded payment in the Russian currency, rather than dollars or euros, in an effort to evade sanctions resulting from its war on Ukraine. Several other countries that depend on Russian energy have also refused to comply with the demand and face similar repercussions. Experts say that the economies of both Europe and Russia will suffer if gas exports are halted. The decision was announced by Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, which is a major supplier of gas products for Europe and Turkey.
Cutting off fuel supplies to European nations will not immediately impact the affected countries, as,many have already been working on alternate fuel sources even before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. Moreover, warming weather across the continent makes gas less essential, for now. Still, news of the impending shortage prompted the European Union to convene a new coordination group to search for ways to mitigate the impact of the new front in the war.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, called the move a “weaponization of energy supplies” in a tweet.
“Gazprom’s move to completely shut off gas supplies to Poland is yet another sign of Russia’s politicization of existing agreements & will only accelerate European efforts to move away from Russian energy supplies,” he wrote.
Australia, Britain, Canada and the US have included bans on oil imports from Moscow in sanctions against the Kremlin, but some European nations have been unable to disentangle themselves from dependency on Russian fuel. One such country is Germany, which has set a goal of eliminating dependence on Russian energy by the end of the year. The country’s ADAC auto club is now urging its 21 million members to take steps to reduce fuel consumption by using public transport or making plans to walk or cycle to nearby destinations when possible.
Russia targets weapons shipments
Russia’s military on Wednesday claimed that its missiles struck a shipment of weapons coming into Ukraine that were supplied by the U.S. and European nations. Russia has increasingly targeted weapons shipments and their means of ingress into Ukraine, including rails and bridges that connect Ukraine to NATO countries. Kremlin forces bombed a strategic bridge linking Ukraine’s Odesa port region to Romania, a NATO country, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Elsewhere, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said Ukrainian forces struck an ammunition depot that was burning early on Wednesday. The incident is the latest in a series of strikes inside of Russia, though it is unclear whether Ukraine is responsible or if these are “false flag” attempts by Moscow designed to drum up support for the war.
Putin agrees ‘in principle’ to Mariupol evacuation
The United Nations on Tuesday said Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed “in principle” to allow the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) to evacuate civilians from the besieged Avrostal steel plant in Mariupol. The announcement followed Tuesday’s meeting between Putin and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres which took place in Moscow.
“Follow-on discussions will be had with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Russian Defense Ministry,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Ukraine appealed Monday to the U.N. and the ICRC to help evacuate the roughly 1,000 civilians sheltering in the factory’s underground complex, where about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders are hunkered down. Some media outlets have reported that many of the civilians are likely families of the Ukrainian soldiers.
Speaking at a news conference alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Guterres said he has proposed a “Humanitarian Contact Group” of officials representing Russia, Ukraine, and the U.N. “to look for opportunities for the opening of safe corridors, with local cessations of hostilities, and to guarantee that they are actually effective.”
State Department responds to Russia’s nuclear rhetoric
In Washington, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that remarks made by Lavrov on Monday about the potential for nuclear war were the “height of irresponsibility.”
“It’s dangerous and it adds to the risk of miscalculation,” Blinken said, adding the U.S. has not taken any steps to change its own nuclear posture.
Lavrov warned Western nations Monday to not underestimate the elevated risks of nuclear conflict over Ukraine as he accused NATO of essentially engaging in a proxy war with Russia by providing weapons to Kyiv.