- The Nord Stream gas pipeline is being restarted at a reduced capacity
- Moscow says southern Ukraine is also focused now
- The United States says any annexation would not be questioned
- The US estimates that so far 15,000 Russian forces have died in the war
July 21 (Reuters) – Russia will resume gas supplies through a major gas pipeline in Europe on Thursday, the pipeline operator said, amid concerns that Moscow will use its large energy exports to curb Western pressure to his invasion of Ukraine.
The resumption of the reduced-capacity Nord Stream 1 pipeline after a 10-day maintenance pause comes after comments from Russia’s foreign minister showed that the Kremlin’s targets had been expanded during the five-month war.
Sergei Lavrov told the state news agency RIA Novosti on Wednesday that Russia’s military “tasks” in Ukraine now go beyond the eastern Donbas region.
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Lavrov also said Moscow’s goals will be further expanded if the West continues to supply Kyiv with long-range weapons such as high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) made in the United States.
“This means that geographical tasks will extend even beyond the current line,” he said, adding that peace talks do not make sense at the moment. Read more
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later told RIA that Moscow does not close the door on talks with Kyiv despite Lavrov’s comments.
Concern that Moscow could stop the supply of Russian gas sent by Europe’s largest gas pipeline prompted the European Union on Wednesday to tell member states to reduce gas use by 15% by March as an emergency. . Read more
“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who described a total cut in Russian gas flows as “a likely scenario” for to which “Europe must be prepared.”
Putin had previously warned that gas supplies through Nord Stream run the risk of being further reduced.
Russia, the world’s largest gas exporter, has denied Western accusations of using its energy supplies as a coercive tool, saying it has been a reliable energy supplier.
As for its oil, Russia will not send supplies to the world market if a maximum price is imposed below the cost of production, Interfax news agency said on Wednesday, citing Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Read more
FIGHT THE AMOUNTS OF PEAGES
On the battlefield, the Ukrainian army has reported heavy and sometimes fatal Russian bombing amid what they said were largely failed attempts by Russian ground forces to advance.
In the previous 24 hours, Ukrainian forces said they had destroyed 17 vehicles, some of them armored, in addition to killing more than 100 Russian soldiers in the south and east.
The administration installed by Russia in the partially occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia said that Ukraine had carried out a drone attack on a nuclear power plant there, but that the reactor was not damaged. Read more
Multiple explosions were also heard in the Russian-controlled southern Kherson region overnight and Thursday, Russian news agency TASS reported.
Reuters was unable to verify the reports independently.
The invasion of Russia has killed thousands, displaced millions and flattened cities, especially in Russian-speaking areas in eastern and southeastern Ukraine. It has also raised world energy and food prices and raised fears of famine in the poorest countries, as Ukraine and Russia are both major grain producers.
The United States estimates that Russian casualties in Ukraine have so far reached about 15,000 dead and perhaps 45,000 wounded, CIA Director William Burns said Wednesday.
Russia classifies military deaths as state secrets even in peacetime and has not updated its official casualty figures frequently during the war. Read more
US OPPOSES ATTACHMENTS
The United States, which had said on Tuesday that it saw signs that Russia was preparing to formally annex the territory that has seized Ukraine, promised to oppose annexation.
“Once again, we have made it clear that annexation by force would be a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations, and we will not allow it to go unchallenged. We will not allow it to go unpunished,” the Department spokesman said. State, Ned Price, in a regular daily briefing on Wednesdays.
Russia annexed Crimea to Ukraine in 2014 and supports Russian-speaking separatist entities – the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) – in these provinces, jointly known as the Donbas.
Lavrov is the highest-ranking figure to have spoken openly about Russia’s war goals in territorial terms, nearly five months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Feb. 24 invasion while denying Russia intended to occupy its neighbor.
Putin then said his goal was to demilitarize and “deactivate” Ukraine, a statement rejected by Kyiv and the West as a pretext for an imperial-style expansion war.
Lavrov told RIA Novosti that geographical realities had changed since Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held peace talks in Turkey in late March that made no progress.
“Now the geography is different, it’s far from just the DPR and the LPR, it’s also the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories,” he said, referring to territories far beyond the Donbas that the Russian forces have occupied all or part of it.
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Reuters office reports; Written by Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Stephen Coates and Simon Cameron-Moore
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