Moscow cuts gas supply to some E.U. states; explosions reported in Russia

Ukraine can choose the “tactics” required to fend off Russia’s invasion, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said when asked whether the United States should support offensive operations by Ukraine against Russia.

“My own view is that it’s vital that they do whatever is necessary to defend against Russian aggression,” Blinken told a Senate panel Wednesday. “And the tactics of this are their decisions.”

The remarks came after a series of explosions in southern Russia and a fire at an ammunition depot Wednesday, events that a senior Ukrainian official described as “karma” for the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, without explicitly claiming responsibility for the explosions, wrote Wednesday on Telegram that if a country decides to “massively attack another country, massively kill everyone there, massively crush peaceful people with tanks, and use warehouses in your regions to enable the killings, then sooner or later the debts will have to be repaid,” according to a Reuters translation.

Blinken, in his defense of Ukraine’s right to respond to Russia, underscored that the goal of Western arms shipments to Ukraine was “making sure that Ukrainians have the means to defend themselves.”