British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss wants to equip Moldova with modern “NATO standard” weapons a neighbor of Ukraine, in anticipation of a possible attack by Russia, published this Saturday The Daily Telegraph.

In an interview with the newspaper, Truss indicated that these plans are being analyzed within the Atlantic Allianceso that, if accepted, member countries could provide defense weapons to the former Soviet republic.

“I would like to see Moldova equipped to NATO standards. It’s a conversation we’re having with our allies”, he claimed.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin has made clear his ambitions to create a greater Russia, and the fact that his attempts to take kyiv were unsuccessful does not mean that he has abandoned those ambitions.”, he points.

Like Ukraine, Moldova, to the southwest of that country, is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and it is feared that it could be Putin’s next target in its territorial expansion plan.

The idea, according to the newspaper, would be to prepare Moldova with current equipment, to replace its from the Soviet era.and train its Armed Forces in its use, as a defense and dissuasive mechanism against a possible Russian attack.

Russia cut off gas supplies to Finland

The supply of natural gas from Russia to Finland was suspended this Saturdaythe Finnish state-owned company Gasum announced, after the Nordic country refused to pay its supplier Gazprom in rubles.

“Gas deliveries to Finland under the Gasum supply contract have been cut off”, the company said in a statement, noting that From now on, the supply will be carried out through the Balticconnector gas pipeline, which connects Estonia with Finland.

On Friday, Gasum said that Gazprom Export, the export arm of Russian giant Gazprom, had informed him that it would cut off supplies on Saturday morning.

The Kremlin made good on its threat to suspend the service, shortly after Helsinki’s request for NATO membership. It is the third country in Europe to suffer such a measure, after Poland and Bulgaria.

Gasum affirmed that it would guarantee the supply of gas through other sources and that the service stations of the gas supply networks would continue to operate.

For its part, Gazprom said in a statement on Saturday that it had “completely stopped gas deliveries” as he had not received ruble payments from the Finnish state-owned energy company Gasum “by the end of the working day on May 20”.

“The supply of natural gas to Finland has been cut off under the Gasum supply contract”, the company said in a statement.

In April, Gazprom Export requested that gas deliveries be paid for in rubles and not euros, but Gasum rejected the request, saying on Tuesday that it had requested an arbitration procedure in court.

Gasum rejected the claim and announced on Tuesday that he would take the matter to arbitration.. Gazprom Export said it would defend its interests in court by any “available means”.

Although gas only represents 8% of Finland’s energy matrix, practically all that is used in the Nordic country comes from Russia.

Finland announced plans to substitute Russian gas next wintersuch as the lease with Estonia of a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification unit for ten years.

In an effort to mitigate the risks of relying on Russian energy exports, the Finnish government also announced Friday that it had signed a 10-year lease for an LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal vessel with Excelerate Energy, based in Russia. In U.S.A.

Categorized in: