It feels as if there has been an added whiff of danger about the conflict in Ukraine this week, which – for the first time since the Russian military crossed the border two months ago – threatens to go beyond Ukraine into neighbouring countries and, perhaps, Russia itself.
A series of fires at oil depots inside Russia have been reported as possible acts of Ukrainian sabotage, while in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, attacks on a security agency building in the region’s capital, Tiraspol, and on a military unit in a village just outside Tiraspol, were blamed by an official on Ukrainian “infiltrators”. For its part, Ukraine says this is clearly a “false flag” operation which could be used by Moscow as an excuse to extend the conflict to Moldova.
This followed a statement on Friday April 22 about Russia’s aims for “stage two” of its war, by top Russian general, Rustam Minnekayev. He said that Russia would aim to occupy and control the south and east of the country, blocking Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea and providing “another way out to Transnistria, where there are also cases of oppression of the Russian-speaking population”.
