US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that his country and its allies decided to form a monthly contact group to ensure Ukraine's ability to repel the Russian military attack, while the Ukrainian authorities said that Russian forces destroyed a vital bridge linking Ukraine and Romania to stop Western military supplies.

Yesterday, Tuesday, at the American base of Ramstein in southern Germany, the meeting of the Security Advisory Group on Ukraine concluded with the participation of 40 countries, where the US Secretary of Defense said that the goal of the monthly meeting is to coordinate and strengthen military support for Ukraine and ensure its ability to repel any future Russian attack.

Minister Austin said the Ukraine war had greatly weakened Russia's military capabilities, and that it would be a difficult task to compensate.

After meeting allies and partners at Ramstein Air Force Base, Austin made it clear that they wanted to make sure Russia could never again attack its neighbors.

In the same context, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Army, General Mark Milley, said that the main goal of the talks at the Ramstein base is to coordinate the increased security assistance to Kiev, including heavy weapons, armed drones, and ammunition.

Part of the consultations of military leaders from 40 countries at the Ramstein base in Germany to coordinate military aid to Ukraine (Getty)

German decision

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said that her country has decided to provide Ukraine with Gepard anti-aircraft armored vehicles;

She added that this type of vehicle is what Ukraine needs now to secure its airspace.

On the other hand, as part of diplomatic efforts to mitigate the catastrophic humanitarian repercussions of the war, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held talks in Moscow on Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations expressed concern about reports of what he called possible war crimes in Ukraine;

This requires an independent investigation, he said.

Guterres added that the Russian intervention in Ukraine is a violation of the foundations of the United Nations, calling for an immediate end to this conflict.

Guterres also suggested forming a humanitarian contact group, and said the United Nations was ready to play a role in saving lives in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Russian warning

Meanwhile, the Secretary-General of the Russian National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev warned that the policies of Washington and its Kyiv regime, as he put it, could lead to the collapse of Ukraine and its division into several countries.

Patrushev considered in a press interview that the tragic scenarios of global crises in the past and present are imposed by Washington's policies.

Patrushev also predicted that the number of Ukrainian refugees in Europe would reach 10 million people;

Which threatens Europe with political and economic crises, a rise in inflation rates, and a low level of income for European citizens, as he put it.


In Washington, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with his Czech counterpart Jan Lipavsky. During the meeting, Blinken praised the support provided by the Czech government to Ukraine through military and humanitarian aid, and the reception of more than 300,000 Ukrainian refugees.

The US State Department said that the two ministers agreed to condemn what it described as the atrocities committed by Russian forces, and the need to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Bulgaria and Poland

In the context of the repercussions of the war, Reuters news agency quoted the Bulgarian Ministry of Energy as saying that the Russian "Gazprom" had notified the Bulgarian gas company that it would stop gas supplies from today, Wednesday.

Reuters also quoted PGNiG, Poland's largest energy company, as saying that Gazprom had told it that gas supplies to Poland through the Yamal pipeline would stop as of Wednesday morning.

The Polish company explained that stopping the flow of gas is a violation of the Yamal Agreement, and that it has the right to demand compensation for the damage resulting from that.

The Polish authorities said that Gazprom's supplies could be compensated by the flow of gas from other, unspecified destinations.

For its part, "Gazprom" refused to confirm or deny the news of the suspension of gas supplies to Poland. A spokesman for the company said that Poland today is obligated to pay the costs of gas supplies in accordance with the new payment procedures, and that the mandatory currency conversion to the ruble should take place today.

Vital bridge

On the field level, the Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday that Russian forces are bombing bridges and railways in the country to slow the arrival of Western arms shipments to Ukrainian forces, after Moscow destroyed a strategic bridge linking Ukraine with Romania.

The director of Ukrainian Railways Oleksandr Kamyshin said that the iron bridge crossing the mouth of the Dniester River was damaged on Tuesday by a missile attack by Russian forces.

The bridge connects Romania to the city of Odessa in southern Ukraine on the shores of the Black Sea.

The strike did not cause any deaths, according to the Ukrainian authorities.

On the other hand, Reuters news agency quoted the Russian governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, as saying that explosions were heard at dawn today, Wednesday, in the city of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, and that a fire broke out in an ammunition depot in the region.


Earlier this month, Moscow accused Kyiv of attacking a fuel depot in Belgorod with helicopters.

revenge blows

Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it was ready to carry out precise retaliatory missile strikes against decision-making centers in Kyiv, if Britain continued to incite Ukraine to strike targets inside Russian territory with Western weapons.

The ministry added, in a statement, that the presence of Western advisers in Ukrainian decision-making centers would not necessarily pose a problem to the Russian response.

On the other hand, Moscow said that Ukrainian forces had lost control of the entire Kherson province in southern Ukraine, and large parts of 3 provinces, namely Zaporozhye, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that it had repulsed 6 Russian attacks targeting Ukrainian army positions in Lugansk and Donetsk in the east of the country during the past 24 hours.