- Finland is expected to announce its bid to join NATO
- Ukraine stops main Russian gas route to Europe
- Russia imposes sanctions on Gazprom’s units in Europe and the United States
- Ukrainian forces are seeking to cut off supply lines to Russian battlefields
Kyiv / BRUSSELS, May 12 (Reuters) – Finland is expected to announce its intention to join NATO on Thursday, with Sweden likely to follow soon, diplomats and officials said, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changes European security. and the Atlantic Military Alliance.
NATO allies expect Finland and Sweden to be granted membership quickly, five diplomats and officials told Reuters, paving the way for an increased military presence in the northern region during the one-year ratification period. Read more
In the wider northern region, Norway, Denmark and the three Baltic states are already members of NATO, and the addition of Finland and Sweden is likely to anger Moscow, which says NATO enlargement is a direct threat to its own security.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the issue as a reason for his actions in Ukraine, which has also expressed a desire to eventually join the alliance.
Moscow has also repeatedly warned Finland and Sweden not to join the alliance, threatening “serious military and political consequences.”
Asked on Wednesday whether Finland would provoke Russia by joining NATO, President Sauli Niinisto said Putin would be to blame. “My answer would be that you caused this. “Look in the mirror,” Niinisto said. Read more
On the front line, Ukraine said on Wednesday that it had repelled Russian forces to the east and shut off gas flows en route through Russian-held territory, raising the specter of Europe’s energy crisis.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said it had recaptured Nursery, a village on the main highway north of Kharkiv’s second-largest city, about halfway to the Russian border.
In another village near Kharkiv, recaptured by Ukrainian forces in early April, resident Tatiana Pochivalova returned and found her home ruined.
“I did not expect something like this, such aggression, such destruction,” Pochivalova said in tears. “I came and kissed the earth, I just kissed it. My home, nothing. Where to live, how to live?”
Progress appears to be the fastest Ukraine has made since expelling Russian troops from the capital, Kyiv, and northern Ukraine in early April.
If maintained, it could allow Ukrainian forces to threaten supply lines to Russia’s main attacking forces and set rear logistical targets in Russia itself within artillery range.
In the south, the Ukrainian military announced early Thursday that it had destroyed two tanks and an ammunition depot in the Russian-controlled Kherson region.
The Kremlin calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarize a neighbor who threatens his security. It denies targeting civilians.
Ukraine says it is not a threat and that the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of cities show that Russia is waging a war of conquest.
GAS DELIVERIES
Ukraine’s move Wednesday to cut off Russian gas supplies through a territory held by Russian-backed separatists was the first time the conflict has directly disrupted supplies to Europe.
Gas flows from Russia’s export monopoly Gazprom to Europe through Ukraine fell by a quarter after Kyiv said it was forced to stop all flows from one route through the Sokhranovka transit point in southern Russia.
Ukraine has accused Russian-backed separatists of draining supplies. Read more
If the reduction in supply continues, this will be the most direct impact so far on European energy markets.
Moscow has also imposed sanctions on the owner of the Polish part of the Yamal pipeline, which carries Russian gas to Europe, as well as on the former German division of Gazprom, whose subsidiaries serve gas consumption in Europe.
The consequences for Europe, which buys more than a third of its gas from Russia, were not immediately clear.
Berlin said it was investigating the message. A spokesman for the economy ministry said the German government was “taking the necessary precautions and preparing for various scenarios”.
BURNTED TANKS
As fighting continued, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, on the other side of the Kharkiv border, said a village in Ukraine had been shelled, injuring one person.
Authorities in Ukraine have so far confirmed few details of the offensive in the Kharkiv region.
“We are succeeding in the direction of Kharkov, where we are constantly repelling the enemy and liberating settlements,” said Brigadier General Alexei Khromov, deputy chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of Ukraine.
In southern Ukraine, where Russia has seized part of its territory, Kyiv said Moscow planned to hold a fake referendum on independence or annexation to make its occupation permanent.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that residents living in the Russian-occupied Kherson region must decide whether they want to join Russia, but any such decision must have a clear legal basis.
Russian forces also continue to bomb the Azovstal steel plant in the southern port of Mariupol, the last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in the city.
“If there is hell on earth, it is there,” wrote Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko who left the city.
Ukraine says tens of thousands of people are likely to have been killed in Mariupol. Ukrainian authorities say between 150,000 and 170,000 of the city’s 400,000 people still live there among the ruins occupied by Russia. Read more
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Reuters bureau reporting; Writing by Costas Pitas and Stephen Coates; Edited by Lincoln Feast
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