Ukraine says Moscow is looking to destabilize neighbor Moldova as it focuses its war on the south and east of the country, while the West has accused Russia of “blackmail” for cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, a move the Kremlin made in response to sanctions imposed on it for invading Ukraine.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia’s invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war, click here.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on April 27 that the villages of Velyka Komyshuvakha and Zavody in the northeastern Kharkiv region and Zarichne and Novotoshkivske in the eastern Donetsk region had fallen to Russian forces, whose aim appears to be linking territory held by Kremlin-backed separatists in the east and Russian-occupied Crimea.
A recent series of blasts in the Russian-backed separatist region of Transdniester, which borders Ukraine t the west, is raising fears of a spillover from the war.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak on April 27 accused Moscow of wanting to use Transdniester to “destabilize” Moldova.
The acting commander of Russia’s Central Military District, Rustam Minnekayev, said last week that Russian-speakers in Transdniester, which has been under separatist control since it declared independence from Moldova in 1990, were being “oppressed.” Moscow used similar allegations to justify in part launching its bloody invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
“If Ukraine falls, tomorrow Russian troops will be at Chisinau’s gates,” Podolyak said, referring to Moldova’s capital, after separatist authorities in Transdniester called the blasts “terrorist attacks.”
Further west, the European Union accused Moscow of “blackmail” after Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom completely halted gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland, the first cut to European customers since the West slapped crippling sanctions on the Kremlin for launching its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Gazprom said in a statement on April 27 that it had “completely suspended” gas supplies to the two EU members for failing to pay in rubles, a condition Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated last month for “unfriendly” foreign buyers as he looks to shore up the local currency, which had plummeted in value when the sanctions were imposed.
“The announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.
“We are prepared for this scenario…. Member states have put in place contingency plans for just such a scenario and we worked with them in coordination and solidarity,” she added.
Poland confirmed the cutoff of supplies, while Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said that Russia’s move is a grave breach of a current contract and that “one-sided blackmail was not acceptable.”
Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said on April 27 that the country can meet the needs of users for at least one month while alternative solutions are sought.
“Alternative supplies are available, and Bulgaria hopes that alternative routes and supplies will also be secured at EU level,” Nikolov said.
Meanwhile, British intelligence said on April 27 that Ukraine had retained control over the majority of its airspace as Russia failed to neutralize the country’s air defenses.
“Russia has very limited air access to the north and west of Ukraine,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in a daily bulletin on Twitter.
“Russian air activity is primarily focused on southern and eastern Ukraine,” the ministry said.
The bulletin pointed to the high risk of civilian casualties, saying most Russian air strikes in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol were probably using unguided, free-falling bombs.
They targeted hangars at an aluminum plant near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya with “high-precision long-range sea-based Kalibr missiles”, the ministry said, without specifying the weapons destroyed.
The announcement came a day after a summit in Germany of 40 Western allies to discuss arms supplies to Ukraine where Washington pledged to move “heaven and earth” to enable Kyiv to win the war.
Russia on April 27 also reported several explosions and a fire on its own territory — at an ammunition depot in the Kursk and Belgorod regions respectively, both of which border Ukraine — the latest in a series of incidents that a top Ukrainian official called payback and “karma” for Moscow’s invasion.
Podolyak, without directly admitting that Ukraine was responsible, said it was natural that Russian border areas where fuel and weapons are stored were learning about “demilitarization” — a direct reference to the Kremlin’s alleged objective for the unprovoked invasion, which it calls a special military operation to disarm and “de-Nazify” its neighbor.
“If you (Russians) decide to massively attack another country, massively kill everyone there, massively crush peaceful people with tanks, and use warehouses in your regions to enable the killings, then sooner or later the debts will have to be repaid,” Podolyak said.
The April 27 explosions came after a major fire this week at a Russian oil-storage facility in the Bryansk region near the border.
Earlier this month, Moscow accused Ukraine of attacking a fuel depot in Belgorod with helicopters, which a top Kyiv security official denied.
The incidents have highlighted Russia’s weakness in areas close to Ukraine that are vital to its military logistics chains.
In Voronezh, the administrative center of another southern region, TASS news agency cited an Emergency Situations Ministry official as saying that two explosions had been heard in the area.
Regional governor Aleksandr Gusev said that an air-defense system had detected and destroyed a small reconnaissance drone.
Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the incidents but described them as payback. “Karma is a cruel thing,” Podolyak wrote on social media.
