Russia responds to Finland’s NATO plan with threats of retaliation

Money transfers to Ukraine have spiked since the start of the war, as refugees send money back to friends and family still in the country, the World Bank said Wednesday. It predicted a 20 percent increase in remittances to Ukraine in 2022, making the country the largest recipient of funds in Europe and Central Asia.

The war will have the opposite effect on several countries in Central Asia, the bank predicted. Russia hosts millions of migrant workers from the region who send funds back to their families. But stifling international sanctions have caused an economic downturn in the country.

The decline could lead to “food insecurity and rising poverty," Michal Rutkowski, global director for social protection and jobs at the World Bank, said in a news release.

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered large-scale humanitarian, migration and refugee crises and risks for a global economy that is still dealing with the impact of the COVID pandemic,” Rutkowski said.

Ukrainian troops appear to have forced a Russian retreat in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, but analysts warn that Moscow’s forces are regrouping and preparing for a siege on another area in the east. Meanwhile, shelling across the country continues to claim lives and destroy infrastructure.

Here are updates from key battlegrounds:

Kharkiv: Ukrainian forces have mounted an effective counterattack in the area around this northeastern city, British and Ukrainian military officials said. Even though Russians encircled the city in the war’s early days, Ukraine’s resistance appears to have pushed them to withdraw, the British defense ministry said. Still, shelling on Thursday killed at least two on the city’s outskirts, local authorities said.

Novgorod-Siversky: In this northern city, just 30 miles from the Russian border, airstrikes early Thursday killed three people and injured 12, regional and national officials said. The strikes destroyed administrative buildings, homes and schools. Russia also claimed to have hit ammunition depots nearby.

Poltava Oblast: This central Ukrainian region on Thursday experienced “perhaps the most intense” stretch of shelling since the war began, its governor said. Twelve Russian rockets hit the city of Kremenchuk, he said, most landing on an oil refinery, which caught fire. No injuries were reported.

Donetsk Oblast: Russian strikes killed at least four civilians in villages dotting this eastern region, one of the two that makes up the Donbas, its governor said. Five people were injured. Donetsk, a stronghold for Russian occupying forces, has long been the site of fierce fighting.

Severodonetsk: One of the last large Ukrainian holdout cities in Luhansk, the other region comprising the Donbas, Severodonetsk has watched Russian troops slowly encroach. Russian troops captured a suburb of the city, a local official said, fearing a coming onslaught. Military analysts have said Moscow may begin focusing more of its military operations on this city.

The cost of natural gas in Europe continued to rise Thursday, after Russia announced new sanctions that will reduce supply and Ukraine shut off a pipeline in the country’s east, citing dangerous conditions due to heavy fighting.

Moscow’s sanctions — the latest action in an escalating standoff over energy supply — targeted the former European subsidiaries of Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas company, and a Polish firm that operates a major pipeline connecting Europe to gas fields in Siberia.

Prices across Europe soared by more than 20 percent, exacerbating an already difficult dynamic for nations that have vowed to wean themselves off Russian energy. Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said the move seemed designed to drive up prices and said it would reduce Russian gas deliveries by 3 percent. It is another example of Moscow’s use of “energy as a weapon,” Habeck said.

The new sanctions came as Ukraine’s gas pipeline operator said it had to halt the flow of gas through a station in the Luhansk region, where Russian forces control most of the territory and ongoing fighting has created instability, preventing the company from carrying out maintenance.

After Finland announced Thursday that it intends to apply to join the NATO military alliance — and Sweden seems set to follow suit — Russia hit back immediately.

Finland and Sweden joining NATO would make them “part of the enemy,” a deputy Russian ambassador to the United Nations said in an interview posted online. NATO detachments in those nations would make them “a target — or possible target — for a strike,” Dmitry Polyanskiy told the website UnHerd. “It’s up to them.”

“They know that the moment they become members of NATO it will imply certain mirror moves on the Russian side,” Polyanskiy said.

“The expansion of NATO does not make our continent more stable and secure,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday, according to Russian news outlet Interfax. He added that Russia could take measures to “balance the situation” if Finland joins the alliance.

“Finland’s accession to NATO will cause serious damage to bilateral Russian-Finnish relations” and the “stability and security” of Northern Europe, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a Thursday statement. “Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop the threats to its national security that arise in this regard.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected to a Senate vote on an aid package for Ukraine, meaning the chamber will not approve the measure this week.

Biden wanted the bill — which sends $39.8 billion in economic, humanitarian and defense aid to Ukraine — on his desk by the end of this week.

Paul single-handedly blocked the measure’s swift advancement because the Senate requires unanimous consent to quickly move such a bill to a final vote. Because of his opposition to a quick vote, the Senate must now go through all the usual procedural hoops.

“We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy,” Paul said of the vote.

Paul, who is ideologically opposed to sending more dollars overseas to a war in which the United States is not directly fighting, said the only way he’d vote to advance the bill was if he was allowed to include a provision that would require the appointment of an inspector general to oversee the funding. Doing so would have forced the bill to go back to the House.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had agreed to pass the aid package this week, offered Paul an amendment vote on his provision. He rejected it.

“He is simply saying, ‘My way or the highway,’” Schumer said, per Mike DeBonis. “When you have a proposal to amend a bill, you can’t just come to the floor and demand it by fiat. You have to convince other members to back it first. That is how the Senate works.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the United States would support Finland applying for NATO membership after leaders of the Nordic country expressed interest in doing so.

“We, of course, will respect whatever decision they make,” she said at a news briefing on Thursday. “Both Finland and Sweden are close and valued defense partners of the United States and of NATO.”

“I would note that even without them being members of NATO, our militaries have worked together for many years,” Psaki added. “We’re confident that we can find ways to work with them, address any concerns either country may have about the period now or whatever is required if they were to join NATO.”

After weeks of deliberations, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced that their militarily nonaligned nation must “apply for NATO membership without delay.” If Finland joins NATO, the accession would add hundreds of miles to NATO’s shared border with Russia.

“As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the entire defense alliance,” they said in a statement on Thursday. The decision, which must be approved by the Finnish Parliament, is expected to be finalized in the coming days.

Finland must seek immediate membership in NATO, leaders of the Nordic nation said on Thursday, moving to end seven decades outside the Western military bloc in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Finland’s entry would add significant combat power to the alliance while also deepening the East-West divisions that have consumed Europe since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Neighboring Sweden is expected to announce its own NATO bid soon.

Moscow said that Finnish accession, which would add hundreds of miles to NATO’s shared border with Russia, would threaten its security. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peksov said that Finnish membership could require new measures by Russia to “balance the situation.”

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin, announcing their positions after weeks of internal deliberations, said the militarily nonaligned nation must “apply for NATO membership without delay.”

BERLIN — Russian feminist arts collective and punk rock band Pussy Riot was set to perform for the first time in three years Thursday, after its lead singer dressed as a food-delivery courier to escape house arrest in Moscow.

Speaking in Berlin at the start of a planned 19-show European tour to raise money for victims of the war in Ukraine, Maria Alyokhina, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, described her decision to leave Russia as “spontaneous.”

It came after Russian authorities announced that she would have to serve a 21-day sentence in a penal colony. Alyokhina has been arrested six times over the past year on charges related to her political activism, with Putin expanding an already stifling crackdown on political dissent since his invasion of Ukraine.

“We want to speak the truth,” Alyokhina said. “Those Russians who are aware are already doing all they can and are being imprisoned.”