Russian Missiles Strike American Weapon Stocks in Ukraine as Blasts Rock Russia’s South
Russia yesterday accused the West of “pouring oil on the fire” with weapons deliveries to Ukraine, which have increased in recent weeks.

ATHENS — The world may have hoped for a more tranquil spring than winter, but the sound of explosions on both sides of the Ukrainian border with Russia this morning are further indications that it won’t be getting one.
The Kremlin destroyed hangars in Ukraine’s strategic Zaporizhzhia region that were allegedly storing Western weapons destined for the Ukrainian military. Russia’s defense ministry said Kalibr missiles were used to strike the hangars, which contained “a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied to Ukrainian troops by the United States and European countries.” The ministry also said the Russian air force destroyed 59 Ukrainian military targets overnight.
There was no immediate word from the White House about Wednesday morning’s attack or what kind of response, if any, it may elicit.
Russia yesterday accused the West of “pouring oil on the fire” with weapons deliveries to Ukraine, which have increased in recent weeks, and on Monday Russian missiles struck five train stations in Ukraine in what it said was a bid to disrupt their delivery.
Moscow woke up to some fires on its own territory today, too. A Russian ammunition depot in Belgorod, less than 20 miles from the Ukrainian border, caught fire, the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, claimed, and explosions of an indeterminate nature were heard in Russia’s south.
Reuters reported that a top Ukrainian official described the spate of violent incidents as payback and “karma” for Moscow’s invasion. Early this month, Russia said two Ukrainian helicopter gunships hit an oil reservoir in the same region, which sparked a large fire.
In the meantime, NATO members Poland and Bulgaria said the Kremlin would be cutting off natural gas supplies starting Wednesday, the first such actions of the war. Poland has been a major gateway for the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and confirmed this week that it is sending tanks.
Polish and Bulgarian leaders reportedly accused Moscow of blackmail. The cutoff came after Vladimir Putin said last month that “unfriendly” countries would need to start paying for gas in rubles, Russia’s currency, which Bulgaria and Poland refused to do.
In a statement, the Russian energy giant Gazprom said it hadn’t received any payments from Poland and Bulgaria since April 1, but the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said he thinks the suspension was revenge for a raft of new Polish new sanctions against Russia.
Tensions are brewing not only in the main Ukraine-Russian theater but also backstage in the breakaway Moldovan breakaway region of Transnistria, where a series of attacks of uncertain provenance occurred earlier this week.
They are considered to be false-flag operations by the Kremlin as a possible precursor to either an invasion of Moldova, which borders NATO-member Romania, or sending Russian troops already stationed in Transnistria across the border into Ukraine. Either development would bring with it the risk of not only more trouble for the Ukrainian military, now mostly focused on fighting the renewed Russian offensive in the eastern Donbas, but also of pushing a sizable chunk of central Europe closer to all-out war.
The Kremlin is now actively fanning those flames. The state-backed news agency TASS quoted the self-styled president of Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky, as saying: “The traces of these attacks lead to Ukraine … I assume that those who organized this attack have the purpose of dragging Transnistria into the conflict.”
Such a statement is likely complete propaganda, but more worrisome are weapons pounding the ground.
Early Wednesday reports surfaced of a second Russian missile strike on a strategic railway bridge at Zatoka, south of Odessa. The bridge was hit first on Tuesday but after today’s attack it is definitely out of commission. A Ukrainian lawmaker, Lesia Vasylenko, said the destruction of the bridge cut off three districts and passage to the border with Romania.
Zatoka lies at the southern edge of the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi estuary. As those watching from Kyiv and the capitals of Europe are doubtless aware, at the northern edge of that estuary starts the strip of the Russian-backed rogue territory of Transnistria.