US ramps up Russia rhetoric
Rail and fuel targets hit in Ukraine as Kremlin warns of World War III and nuclear confrontation
Russia unleashed a string of attacks Monday against rail and fuel installations deep inside Ukraine, far from the front lines of Moscow’s new eastern offensive, as Russia’s top diplomat warned against provoking World War III and said the threat of a nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated”.
The US, meanwhile, moved to rush more weaponry to Ukraine and said the assistance from the Western allies is making a difference in the twomonth-old war.
“Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared, a day after he and the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Blinken said Washington approved a US$165 million ($249m) sale of ammunition — non-US ammo, mainly if not entirely for Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons — and will also provide more than US$300m in financing to buy more supplies.
Austin took his comments further, saying that while the US wants to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, democratic country, it also wants “to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine”. That appeared to represent a broader US strategic goal. Previously, the US position had been to help Ukraine win and to defend Ukraine’s Nato neighbours against Russian threats.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said weapons supplied by Western countries “will be a legitimate target”, adding that Russian forces had already targeted weapons warehouses in western Ukraine.
“Everyone is reciting incantations that in no case can we allow World War III,” Lavrov said in a wide-ranging interview on Russian television. He accused Ukrainian leaders of provoking Russia by asking Nato to become involved in the conflict.
By providing weapons, Nato forces are “pouring oil on the fire”, he said, according to a transcript on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.
Regarding the possibility of a nuclear confrontation, Lavrov said: “I would not want to see these risks artificially inflated now, when the risks are rather significant.”
“The danger is serious,” he said. “It is real. It should not be underestimated.”
Several Biden administration officials said the messaging by Austin and Blinken was partly aimed at giving Zelenskyy the strongest possible hand for what they expect will be some kind of cease-fire negotiations in coming months.
But the messaging also could reinforce Putin’s assertions that the Ukraine war is really about the future of Russia, which sees neighbouring Ukraine’s pro-Western bent as a direct threat. And by casting the American goal as a weakened Russia, the administration has more explicitly stated its determination to contain the Russian leader’s power.
Zelenskyy has grown bolder recently, saying that Western nations are now providing the heavy weaponry he has been seeking. He has, though, also been forthright in assessing the dire military situation for Ukrainian troops who are surrounded inside a steel factory in Mariupol, the southeast port city besieged by Russia that has become a symbol of the war’s devastation.
Speaking at a news conference Saturday, Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian army has at times ceded territory in the fighting in the country’s east but also recaptured areas.
“This is the situation in the eastern regions every day,” he said. “We can give a piece of territory, but during the nighttime, we bring it back.” Yesterday, Russia focused its missiles and warplanes far behind the Donbas region. Five railroad stations in central and western Ukraine were hit, and one worker was killed, said Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of Ukraine’s state railway. The bombardment included a missile attack near Lviv, the western city close to the Polish border that has been swelled by Ukrainians fleeing the fighting.
Ukrainian authorities said at least five people were killed by Russian strikes in the Vynnytsia region. Russia also destroyed an oil refinery in Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, along with fuel depots there, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said.
In all, Russian warplanes destroyed 56 Ukrainian targets, he said.
Philip Breedlove, a retired US general who was Nato’s top commander from 2013 to 2016, said the latest strikes against fuel depots are part of a strategy to deplete key Ukrainian war resources. The strikes against rail targets, on the other hand, are a newer tactic, he said.
“I think they’re doing it for the legitimate reason of trying to interdict the flow of supplies to the front. The illegitimate reason is they know people are trying to leave the country, and this is just another intimidation, terrorist tactic to make them not have faith and confidence in travelling on the rails.”
In Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that sits along the Ukrainian border, several explosions believed caused by rocket-propelled grenades hit the territory’s Ministry of State Security. There was no immediate claim of responsibility or reports of injuries. Transnistria is a strip of land with about 470,000 people and about 1500 Russian troops based there. Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said “the aim of today’s incident is to create pretexts for straining the security situation in the Transnistrian region”.
Last week, Rustam Minnekayev, a Russian military commander, said the Kremlin wants full control of southern Ukraine, which he said would open the way to Transnistria.
An estimated 2000 Ukrainian troops holed up in a steel plant in the strategic southern port city of Mariupol are tying down Russian forces and apparently keeping them from being added to the offensive elsewhere in the Donbas.
About 1000 civilians were also said to be taking shelter at the steelworks, and the Russian military pledged to open a humanitarian corridor yesterday for them to leave.
The Russian offer was met with scepticism by Ukraine.
The city council and mayor of Mariupol said a new mass grave has been found about 10km north of the city. Mayor Vadym Boychenko said authorities were trying to estimate the number of victims. It was at least the third new mass grave discovered in Russian-controlled areas near Mariupol in the past week.