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15 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 27 APRIL 2022 NEWS UKRAINE CONFLICT RUSSIA'S top diplomat warned Ukraine against provoking World War III and said the threat of a nuclear conflict "should not be underestimated" as his country unleashed attacks against rail and fuel installations far from the front lines of Mos- cow's new eastern offensive. Meanwhile, the British De- fense Ministry said Tuesday that Russian forces had taken the Ukrainian city of Kreminna in the Lukansk region after days of street-to-street fighting. "The city of Kreminna has re- portedly fallen and heavy fighting is reported south of Izium as Rus- sian forces attempt to advance to- wards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north and east," the British military said in a tweet. It did not say how it knew the city, 575 kilometers (355 miles) southeast of the Ukrain- ian capital, Kyiv, had fallen. The Ukrainian government did not immediately comment. The US has been rushing more weaponry to Ukraine and said the assistance from Western allies is making a difference in the two- month-old war. "Russia is failing. Ukraine is suc- ceeding," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared Mon- day after he and the US secretary of defense made a bold visit to Kyiv to meet with President Vo- lodymyr Zelenskyy. Blinken said Washington ap- proved a $165 million sale of ammunition — non-US am- mo, mainly if not entirely for Ukraine's Soviet-era weapons — and will also provide more than $300 million in financing to buy more supplies. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin went further, saying the US wants to see Ukraine remain a sovereign, democratic coun- try, but also wants "to see Rus- sia weakened to the point where it can't do things like invade Ukraine." Austin's remarks appeared to represent a shift in US strate- gic goals since earlier it said the goal of American military aid was to help Ukraine win and to de- fend Ukraine's NATO neighbors against Russian threats. Lavrov's warning to Ukraine In an apparent response to Austin, Russian Foreign Minis- ter Sergei Lavrov said Russia has "a feeling that the West wants Ukraine to continue to fight and, as it seems to them, wear out, ex- haust the Russian army and the Russian military industrial war complex. This is an illusion." Weapons supplied by Western countries "will be a legitimate target," Lavrov said, adding that Russian forces were targeting weapons warehouses in western Ukraine. Lavrov accused Ukrainian lead- ers of provoking Russia by asking NATO to become involved in the conflict. NATO has effectively "entered into a war with Russia through proxies and is arming those proxies," he said. NATO forces are "pouring oil on the fire," Lavrov said, according to a transcript on the Russian Foreign Ministry's website. "Everyone is reciting incanta- tions that in no case can we allow World War III," he said in a Rus- sian television interview. Lavrov said he would not want to see risks of a nuclear confron- tation "artificially inflated now, when the risks are rather signif- icant." "The danger is serious," he said. "It is real. It should not be under- estimated." Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter that Lavrov's comments under- score Ukraine's need for West- ern help: "Russia loses last hope to scare the world off supporting Ukraine. Thus the talk of a 're- al' danger of WWIII. This only means Moscow senses defeat in Ukraine." Russia's new military objec- tives in Ukraine When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, its apparent goal was to seize Kyiv, the capital. But the Ukrainians, helped by West- ern weapons, forced President Vladimir Putin's troops to retreat. Moscow now says its goal is to take the Donbas, the mostly Rus- sian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine. Both sides say that campaign is underway, but Russia has yet to mount an all- out ground offensive or make any major breakthroughs. On Monday, Russia focused its firepower elsewhere, with mis- siles and warplanes striking far behind the front lines to try to thwart Ukrainian supply efforts. Five railroad stations in cen- tral and western Ukraine were hit, and one worker was killed, said Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of Ukraine's state railway. The bombardment included a missile attack near Lviv, the western city near the Polish border that has been swelled by Ukrainians flee- ing the violence elsewhere. Ukrainian authorities said at least five people were killed by Russian strikes in the central Vynnytsia region. Russia also destroyed an oil re- finery and fuel depots in Kremen- chuk, in central Ukraine, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said. In all, Russian warplanes destroyed 56 Ukrainian targets, he said. Philip Breedlove, a retired U.S. general who was NATO's top commander from 2013- 2016, said the strikes on fuel depots are meant to deplete key Ukrainian war resources. Strikes against rail targets, on the other hand, are a "legitimate" effort to disrupt sup- ply lines, he said. "The illegitimate reason is they know people are trying to leave the country, and this is just an- other intimidation, terrorist tac- tic to make them not have faith and confidence in traveling on the rails." Phillips P. O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said the war is settling into a cam- paign of incremental battlefield losses and gains. "The two sides are sort of every day weakening each other," he said. In Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova beside the Ukrainian border, several explo- sions believed caused by rock- et-propelled grenades hit the ter- ritory's Ministry of State Security. There was no immediate claim of responsibility or reports of in- juries. Transnistria is a strip of land with about 470,000 people. About 1,500 Russian troops are based there. Moldova's Foreign Ministry said "the aim of today's incident is to create pretexts for strain- ing the security situation in the Transnistrian region." The U.S. has said Russia might launch "false-flag" attacks against its own side to create a pretext for invad- ing other nations. Last week, Rustam Minnekayev, a Russian military commander, said the Kremlin wants full con- trol of southern Ukraine, to open the way to Transnistria. Siege continues at Mariupol An estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops holed up in a steel plant in the strategic southern port city of Mariupol are tying down Russian forces, apparently pre- venting them from joining the of- fensive elsewhere in the Donbas. Over the weekend, Russian forc- es launched new airstrikes on the Azovstal plant to try to dislodge the holdouts. Some 1,000 civilians were also said to be taking shelter at the steelworks. The city council and mayor of Mariupol said a new mass grave was identified about 10 kilom- eters (6 miles) north of the city. Mayor Vadym Boychenko said authorities were trying to esti- mate the number of victims. It was at least the third new mass grave discovered in Russian-con- trolled areas near Mariupol in the last week. Mariupol has been gutted by bombardment and fierce street fighting over the past two months. Russia's capture of the city would deprive Ukraine of a vital port and give Moscow a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsu- la, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was maintaining its resistance to "make the occupiers' stay in our land even more intolerable," while Russia drains its resources. Britain said it believes 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's inva- sion began. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said 25% of the Rus- sian combat units sent to Ukraine "have been rendered not combat effective." Ukrainian officials have said about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed as of mid- April. Russian foreign minister warns Ukraine against provoking World War III Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov