Russia stops gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. The Russian military says it has taken control of the Kherson region

Russia stops gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria. The information was officially confirmed by the Warsaw and Sofia governments. Poland was fined for refusing to pay in rubles.

The Kremlin has announced that Gazprom is implementing the decree by which Vladimir Putin decided that all countries that buy Russian gas must pay them in rubles. Poland is not worried – the government has stated that it has sufficient reserves and is no longer dependent on Russian gas.

For Bulgaria, the decision is tough because the country is dependent on imports from Russia.

In retort, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen said that Bulgaria and Poland will be supplied with gas “by their neighbors in the European Union” after Gazprom announced that it had completely stopped supplying gas to the two countries on the grounds that they refused to pay in rubles, it said on Wednesday.

“We will make sure that Gazprom’s decision has the least possible effect on European consumers,” the head of the European Commission promised in a short speech to the press, reports AFP.

On the other hand, she warned European companies that they were violating EU sanctions against Russia if they accepted Moscow’s request to pay in rubles for gas supplied by Gazprom. “They don’t have to answer these requests. It would be a violation of sanctions and a high risk for companies, ” said Ursula von der Leyen.

She has though refrained from confirming whether there were countries in the EU that agreed to pay for Russian gas in rubles, and insisted that “payment in rubles, if not provided for in the contract, is a violation of our sanctions.”

Greece, too, has offered to help Bulgaria after Gazprom decides to cut off gas supplies to Sofia, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Bulgarian counterpart Kiril Petkov on Wednesday, Reuters reports. Mitsotakis also called for an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss Greece’s gas supply situation and the impact of the decisions, the Greek prime minister’s office said, without providing further details.

On the other hand, Russia denied allegations of using gas supplies as a blackmail tool after energy giant Gazprom shut down flows to Poland and Bulgaria. However, a Kremlin spokesman warned on Wednesday that other countries that refuse to pay for gas in rubles could face the same result, Reuters reports.

Russia’s stance came after the EC President Ursula von der Leyen, had accused it is a Russia’s attempt to use gas a a blackmail tool.

“It is about no blackmail,” retorted Kremlin’s spokespersona Dmitri Peskov.

Putin threatens a “quick and quick response” if “someone from outside” intervenes in the war 

On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin threatened a “quick and quick response” if “someone from outside wants to intervene in Ukraine.”

The Russian president said he would use “all tools” if there was any intervention by anyone who posed a “strategic threat” to Russia in the war in Ukraine.
“If someone from outside wants to intervene in the situation in Ukraine and poses a strategic threat, unacceptable to Russia, our response will be lightning fast. We have all the tools to do that,” Putin said.

Russian forces are attacking Ukrainian fighters housed in the Azovstal plant in Mariupol 

Russian forces hit the Azovstal plant in Mariupol on Wednesday, where the city’s last Ukrainian defenders and several civilians are housed, a local official was quoted as saying by Reuters. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of the city, said there had been airstrikes on the Azovstal plant, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s saying that it should not be taken by storm after declaring victory in Mariupol. “The airstrikes on Azovstal have not stopped. There is no ceasefire, but attempts to storm the plant, despite Putin’s statements,” Andryushchenko wrote on his Telegram channel, noting that street fighting continues around the Azovstal plant.

Local officials say much of the city of Mariupol has been destroyed in the weeks of Russian bombing and siege since Russian forces invaded Ukraine on February 24 and that about 100,000 civilians are still in the city. Ukrainian officials also described the situation in Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of ​​Azov, as a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Andrushchenko said no agreement had been reached on Wednesday on trying to evacuate civilians from Mariupol. Many previous efforts to arrange a ceasefire to allow residents to leave the city have failed, the Ukrainian official explained.

Explosions at Belgorod

At the same time, several explosions were heard on Wednesday morning in the Russian city of Belgorod, located about 40 kilometers north of the border with Ukraine, according to a local official, quoted by the BBC.

More than 40 nations gathered on Tuesday to show support for Ukraine in talks led by the United States at its Ramstein air base, while Germany announced that it was sending 50 cheetah mobile anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine.

Russian forces have adopted a stronger pattern of operational deployment in eastern Ukraine, at least along the Izium-Rubijne line, the U.S. Institute for War Studies said in an assessment released Tuesday night through Wednesday.

Russian troops are moving on several roughly parallel roads, at a distance of support from each other, which allows them to bring more fighting power than in their previous pattern of action. Russian troops on this line are making better progress than any other Russian advance in this phase of the war. They push from Izium to the southwest, to Barvinkove, and to the southeast, to Slovyansk.

The Russians are also moving several columns west and south of Rubizhne, probably intending to encircle it and complete its capture, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War. (ISW). However, Russian advances even in this area are taking place methodically rather than rapidly, and it is unclear how far they will be able to advance or whether they will be able to encircle large numbers of Ukrainian forces. Russian forces on the Izium axis are likely to benefit from the absence of Ukrainian defensive positions prepared against attacks in the direction of Kharkov on the Donbas, ISW added. Fighting continues in Mariupol, where Ukrainian defenders appear to still hold positions beyond the Azovstal Plant, ISW notes.

The Institute for the Study of War also says that Russia is organizing false flag attacks in Transnistria and could try to destabilize Moldova, creating additional tensions with Romania and NATO. Putin can recognize Transnistria by pursuing a “cheap gain” and a distraction from eastern Ukraine.

New missile hit the bridge over the Dniester in the Odessa region

A second rocket hit the bridge over the Dniester estuary in the Odessa region on Wednesday. The head of the Ukrainian railway network, Oleksandr Kamyshin, said another rocket hit the railway and road bridge. “Today at 6:45 a second rocket attack took place on the same bridge over the Dniester estuary in the Odessa region,” Kamyshin said.

No employees of the railway company were injured, and the extent of the damage to the infrastructure is yet to be determined, he said. The bridge was hit by a Russian rocket attack on Tuesday. Repairs had just begun when Wednesday’s attack took place.

The Russians fired on the Ukrainians who came out to protest in Kherson against the occupation

6 Russian soldiers fired on peaceful protesters in Kherson on Wednesday to protest against the Russian occupation. According to Ukrainian media, four people were injured. In the images that appeared on social networks, you can see dozens of protesters who came out in front of the headquarters of the local administration, occupied by Russian forces. They carry the Ukrainian flag and chant against the Russians. At one point, the Russians started firing at them and bursting into tears.

The Russians claim to have taken control of the Kherson region 

The Russian Federation’s army said on Tuesday evening that it had made important territorial conquests in eastern and southern Ukraine, including the capture of the entire Kherson region, according to dpa.

“The Russian army has taken control of the entire Kherson region, parts of the Zaporozhye and Nikolaev (Mikolaiv) regions, as well as significant parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics,” Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintev said.

In the conquered areas, daily life is slowly returning to normal, social infrastructure is being repaired and the sowing of crops has begun, Mizintev assured. However, despite Moscow’s claims, there is conflicting information about control of the Kherson region. Earlier on Tuesday, the region’s Ukrainian military commander said the line of defense was inside Kherson and that Russian forces had failed to cross it.

British assessment: Ukraine continues to control most of its airspace 

The Ukrainian military retains control of most of the country’s airspace, with Russian air activity focusing mainly on the southern and eastern areas, the British Defense Ministry said in an assessment on Wednesday morning.

According to the British assessment:    

• Ukraine retains control of most of its airspace. Russia has failed to effectively destroy the Ukrainian air force or suppress the Ukrainian air defense.
• Ukraine continues to threaten Russian air forces.
• Russian air activity is mainly concentrated in southern and eastern Ukraine, providing support to its ground forces. Russia has very limited air access to northern and western Ukraine, limiting its offensive actions to long-range shots with long-range firearms. Russia continues to target Ukrainian military assets and logistics infrastructure across the country.
• Most of the Russian airstrikes in Mariupol are probably carried out with the help of unguided bombs with free fall. These weapons reduce Russia’s ability to fire effectively when firing, which increases the risk of civilian casualties.

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 27 April 2022

Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/yBkEQmjzoS

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— Ministry of Defence ?? (@DefenceHQ) April 27, 2022

Boris Johnson’s solution to ending the war

Russian President Vladimir Putin has the “political space” to end his invasion of Ukraine, in part because of censorship in Russia, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday. “Given Russia’s massive support for what it does, the apparent indifference of the Russian media to what is really happening in Ukraine, the paradox is that Putin has a lot of political space to back down and withdraw,” he said. Boris Johnson on TalkTV, according to AFP.

Russia claims that the invasion of Ukraine is a “special military operation” and has threatened to imprison anyone who offers a different version of events. As a result, Putin could tell the Russian people that the operation launched in Ukraine was “a success” and that “technically, it is a success,” Boris Johnson said.

3 Russian pilots among the 7 soldiers to be accused of war crimes

Three Russian pilots suspected of bombing civilian buildings in the Kharkiv and Sumi regions are among the seven Russian soldiers against whom Kiev is currently preparing war crimes charges, the Ukrainian prosecutor general told Reuters. The other people are two rocket launchers who allegedly bombed civilian settlements in the Kharkov region and two soldiers suspected of killing a resident of the outskirts of Kiev, after which they raped his wife. The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said it had notified the suspects and that investigations were ongoing, adding that no charges had been brought in court. Also, Ukrainian prosecutors did not disclose the names of the suspects and did not provide any evidence to support the allegations. Reuters notes that some of the suspects were held captive without specifying where.

Ukrainian legal authorities say they are investigating about 7,600 potential war crimes, and at least 500 suspects have been identified so far since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th.

Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova told Reuters that many of the suspects were in Russia, but some were taken prisoner by Ukraine as prisoners of war. Speaking in an interview with the British news agency earlier this month, Venediktova said that his office also intends to investigate Russian officials with political and military command.