প্রকাশ: 12/05/2022
Finland is expected
to announce on Thursday its intention to join NATO with Sweden likely to follow
soon after, diplomats and officials said, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine
reshapes 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 increased troop presence in the Nordic region during the one-year
ratification period.
In the wider Nordic region, Norway, Denmark and the three
Baltic states are already NATO members, and the addition of Finland and Sweden
would likely anger Moscow, which says NATO enlargement is a direct threat to
its own security.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited the issue as a
reason for his actions in Ukraine, which has also expressed a desire to
eventually join the alliance.
On the frontlines, Ukraine on Wednesday said it had pushed
back Russian forces in the east and shut gas flows on a route through Russian-held
territory, raising the spectre of an energy crisis in Europe.
Ukraine's armed forces' general staff said it had recaptured
Pytomnyk, a village on the main highway north of the second-largest city of
Kharkiv, about halfway to the Russian border.
"The occupying forces moved to the defence in order to
slow down the pace of the offensive of our troops," it said. "The
settlement of Pytomnyk ... was liberated."
The advance appears to be the fastest that Ukraine has
mounted since it drove Russian troops away from the capital Kyiv and out of
northern Ukraine at the beginning of April.
If sustained, it could let Ukrainian forces threaten supply
lines for Russia's main attack force, and put rear logistics targets in Russia
itself within range of artillery.
The Kremlin calls its actions in Ukraine a "special
military operation" to demilitarise a neighbour threatening its security.
It denies targeting civilians.
Ukraine says it poses no threat and that the deaths of
thousands of civilians and destruction of towns and cities show that Russia is
waging a war of conquest.
Gas supplies
Wednesday's move by Ukraine to cut off Russian gas supplies
through territory held by Russian-backed separatists was the first time the
conflict has directly disrupted shipments to Europe.
Gas flows from Russia's export monopoly Gazprom to Europe
via Ukraine fell by a quarter after Kyiv said it was forced to halt all flows
from one route, through the Sokhranovka transit point in southern Russia.
Ukraine accused Russian-backed separatists of siphoning
supplies.
Should the supply cut persist, it would 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 that carries Russian gas to Europe, as well as
Gazprom's former German unit, whose subsidiaries service Europe's gas
consumption.
The implications for Europe, which buys more than a third of
its gas from Russia, were not immediately clear.
Berlin said it was looking into the announcement. An Economy
Ministry spokesperson said the German government was "taking the necessary
precautions and preparing for various scenarios".
Burned out tanks
As fighting continued, the governor of the Russian region of
Belgorod, on the other side of the border from Kharkiv, said a village had been
shelled from Ukraine, wounding one person.
Ukraine authorities have so far confirmed few details about
the advance through the Kharkiv region.
"We are having successes in the Kharkiv direction,
where we are steadily pushing back the enemy and liberating population
centres," said Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov, Deputy Chief of the Main
Operations Directorate of Ukraine's General Staff.
In southern Ukraine, where Russia has seized a swathe of
territory, Kyiv has said Moscow plans to hold a fake referendum on independence
or annexation to make its occupation permanent.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was up to residents living
in the Russian-occupied Kherson region to decide whether they wanted to join
Russia, but any such decision must have a clear legal basis.
Russian forces have also continued to bombard the Azovstal
steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, last bastion of Ukrainian
defenders in a city
"If there is hell on earth, it is there," wrote
Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko, who has left
the city.
Ukraine says it is likely that tens of thousands of people
have been killed in Mariupol. Ukrainian authorities say between 150,000 and
170,000 of the city's 400,000 residents are still living there amid the
Russian-occupied ruins.
- REUTERS
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