The US defence chief urged Ukraine's allies to "move at the speed of war" to get more and heavier weapons to Kyiv as Russian forces rained fire on eastern and southern Ukraine amid new fears the fighting could spill over the country's borders.
For the second day, explosions rocked the separatist region of Trans-Dniester Tuesday in neighboring Moldova, knocking out two powerful radio antennas. And a Russian missile hit a strategic railroad bridge linking Ukraine's Odesa port region to neighbouring Romania, a NATO member, Ukrainian authorities said.
Just across the border in Russia, an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region was burning early Wednesday after several explosions were heard, the governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on the messaging app Telegram. Early this month, Russia said two Ukrainian helicopter gunships hit an oil reservoir in the same region, causing a fire.
NATO members Poland and Bulgaria said the Kremlin is 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 the country tanks.
Poland said it was well-prepared after working for years to reduce its reliance on Russian energy. Poland also has ample natural gas in storage, and it will soon benefit from two pipelines coming online, analyst Emily McClain of Rystad Energy
said.
Bulgaria gets over 90% of its gas from Russia, and officials said they were working to find other sources, such as from Azerbaijan.
Both countries had refused Russia's demands that they pay in rubles, as have almost all of Russia's gas customers in Europe.