Moscow inflicts ‘hell’ in east

Bulgarian political crisis casts shadow over Balkans summit in Brussels

Kyiv, June 23: Russian forces battled stiff resistance to advance in the embattled eastern Donbas region as a Bulgarian government crisis tarnished a European Union summit on Thursday that was intended to bolster the EU membership hopes of Balkan countries and to show Western resolve.

Bulgaria’s parliament voted no-confidence on Wednesday in the coalition government of Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, presenting an obstacle to the long-delayed start of the EU’s accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania.

Western officials also denounced Moscow’s “weaponising” of its key gas and grain exports, with a US official warning of further retaliation measures at a G7 summit in Germany starting on Sunday.

In Ankara meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “weaponising hunger” by preventing grain shipments

from leaving Ukraine ports, raising the spectre of shortages worldwide. “We are very clear that this grain crisis is urgent, that it needs to be solved within the next month. Otherwise we could see

devastating consequences,” Truss said after talks with her Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Moscow and Ankara have negotiated for weeks on getting millions of tonnes of desperately needed

grain out of the war zone and on to Africa and the Middle East, so far to no avail.

The potential consequences for Ukraine’s allies loomed large over the country’s EU candidate status

talks in Brussels, and the G7 and Nato meetings in the following days.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had conducted a “telephone marathon” ahead of the meeting.