The Russian offensive on Ukraine does not stop but is spreading and also alarming neighboring countries such as Moldova which fears the extension of Moscow's armed invasion into its Transnistria. But yesterday the Russian bombs have not ceased to cause deaths and injuries by striking Odessa, a strategic port in southwestern Ukraine: 8 victims, including a three-month-old baby. And they haven't even stopped flipping through new horror pages like the discovery of new mass graves a Mariupol, where the Russians have piled up hundreds of corpses.
The press conference in the Zelensky metro and the signals to Italy
Despite the massacre count getting heavier every day, Ukraine has no intention of giving up, as the president explained yesterday Zelensky at a press conference held in an underground metro station in Kiev. The heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people - said the Ukrainian president - continues but without missing the opportunity to launch signals of negotiation with the Russians. "I am ready to meet Putin" said Zelensky, who today receives the US Secretary of State, Blinken, and the US defense minister, Austin, in Kiev, and who said he was also waiting for the Italian premier Mario Draghi, who did not miss to thank for the aid that our country is providing to Ukraine.
Moldova fears Russian invasion of Transnistria
But, in addition to the terrible war toll - made up of dead, wounded, refugees and people exhausted by bombs and hunger - it is Putin's expansionist plans that alarm not only Ukraine but the neighboring countries, starting with Moldova. The Kremlin is credited with intending to try to conquer not only all of the Donbass but Odessa itself and the entire Ukrainian coast to get to Transnistria, a republic bordering Ukraine, self-proclaimed independent in 1990 but formally still part of Moldova and in reality for some time now in the hands of Russian-speaking and openly pro-Russian rulers and the Russian mafia.
According to reports today "la Repubblica" Russian spies would be at work to destabilize Moldova, which has also applied for admission to the European Union, to create a casus belli and invade its Transnistria and thus make Russia the second power of the Sea Black after Turkey. The fear primarily concerns a huge arms depot in Kolbasna, in Transnistria: "If they hit it - they say in the capital Chisinau - half of Moldova will blow up". “We are a fragile country in a fragile region” , which moreover depends 100% on the Russian gas, Moldovan President Maia Sandu admits with great concern and suggests that her country is experiencing these hours full of anxiety and country.
