TORETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pounded eastern and southern Ukraine on Tuesday as the U.S. promised to “keep moving heaven and earth” to get Kyiv the weapons it needs to repel the new offensive, despite Moscow’s warnings that such support could trigger a wider war.
For the second day in a row, explosions rocked the separatist region of Trans-Dniester in neighboring Moldova, knocking out two powerful radio antennas close to the Ukrainian border and further heightening fears of a broader conflict erupting across Europe. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Ukraine all but blamed Russia.
Russian missile fire also knocked out a strategic railroad bridge along a route that links southern Ukraine’s Odesa port region to neighboring Romania, a NATO member, Ukrainian authorities said.
The attack on the bridge — along with a series of strikes on key railroad stations a day earlier — appears to mark a major shift in Russia’s approach. Up to now, Moscow has spared strategic bridges, perhaps in hopes of keeping them for its own use in seizing Ukraine. But now it seems to be trying to thwart Ukraine’s efforts to move troops and supplies.
Southern Ukraine and Moldova have been on edge since a senior Russian military officer said last week that the Kremlin’s goal is to secure not just eastern Ukraine but the entire south, so as to open the way to Trans-Dniester.
Two months into the devastating war, Western arms have helped Ukraine stall Russia’s invasion, but the country’s leaders have said they need more support fast.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that more help is on the way as he convened a meeting of officials from around 40 countries at the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany, to pledge more weapons.
“This gathering reflects the galvanized world,” Austin said in his opening remarks. He added that he wanted officials to leave the meeting “with a common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s near-term security requirements because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them.”
After unexpectedly fierce resistance by Ukrainian forces thwarted Russia’s attempt to take Ukraine’s capital early in the war, Moscow now says its focus is the capture of the Donbas, the mostly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
In the small city of Toretsk in the Donbas, residents are struggling to survive, collecting rainwater for washing up and fervently hoping for an end to the fighting.
“It’s bad. Very bad. Hopeless,” said Andriy Cheromushkin. “You feel so helpless that you don’t know what you should do or shouldn’t do. Because if you want to do something, you need some money, and there is no money now.”
In its latest assessment of the fighting, the British Defense Ministry reported Russian advances and heavy fighting in the Donbas, with one town, Kreminna, apparently falling after days of street-by-street fighting.
In the gutted southern port city of Mariupol, authorities said Russian forces hit the Azovstal steel plant with 35 airstrikes over the past 24 hours.
