‘Putin doesn’t want to fight Nato’

KYIV/ZAPORIZHZHIA: US defence secretary Austin said he doubts Russia will widen its war, such as by attacking missile sites in Poland, because Putin doesn’t want to take on the Nato alliance. “This is a fight that he really doesn’t want to have,” Austin said.

It would “quickly escalate into another type of confrontation that no one wants to see,” Austin said in testimony to the House Appropriations defense panel.

Austin also said he has emphasised to Ukraine’s leaders the importance of keeping track of US weapons sent to the country so they don’t go astray. “Accountability is an important issue to all of us,” he said.

Ukraine shut down a pipeline on Wednesday that carries Russian natural gas to homes and industries in Western Europe, while a Kremlin-installed official in a southern region seized by Russian troops said the area will ask Moscow to annex it.

The cutoff highlights the broader risk to gas supplies from the war.

Meanwhile, the talk of annexation in Kherson — and Russia’s apparent willingness to consider such a request — raised the possibility that the Kremlin will seek to break off another piece of Ukraine as it tries to salvage an invasion gone awry. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it would be “up to the residents of the Kherson region” to make such a request, and that any move to annex territory would have to be closely evaluated by experts to make sure its legal basis is “absolutely clear”.

The gas cutoff came as Western powers have been looking to ratchet up economic pressure on Moscow and bolster Ukraine’s defenders. The US House approved a $40 billion Ukraine aid package on Tuesday. Senate approval appeared certain.

Russian troops continued to pound the steel plant that is the last bastion of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol, its defenders said. The Azov Regiment said on social media that Russian forces carried out 38 airstrikes in the previous 24 hours on the grounds of Azovstal steelworks.

Ukraine is also targeting Russian air defences and resupply vessels on Snake Island in the Black Sea in an effort to disrupt Moscow’s efforts to expand its control over the coastline, the British ministry of defence said.

Separately, Ukraine said it shot down a cruise missile targeting the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Wednesday.