US not interested in Ukraine, says Austin

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US not interested in Ukraine, says Austin

Washington doesn't want to see the Ukrain conflict expand to Transnistria or Moldova, according to the US defense secretary.

The US is not interested in the conflict in Ukraine and wants to see the conflict in Ukraine spill over to the area, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday at a conference in Germany on supplying Kiev with weapons and equipment.

We are still looking into the cause of that, still doing analysis there, so we're not really sure what that s all about, but that's something we'll focus on, Austin told reporters at the Ramstein military base in Germany.

He said that we do everything we can to make sure that Ukraine is successful, because we don't want to see any spillover.

Austin was in Germany to organize 40 US allies to send weapons to Ukraine, but he promised to move heaven and earth to help Kiev win the conflict with Russia.

His remarks came as the government in Chisinau convened an emergency meeting on the situation in Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova where a number of attacks have taken place over the past two days.

Two explosions on Tuesday destroyed two radio towers in the town of Mayak, which had been broadcasting Russian radio signals to Transnistria. On Monday, someone fired rocket-propelled grenades at a government building in Tiraspol, the capital of the breakaway region. A military base in Parkany was also attacked. There were no casualties.

The authorities in Tiraspol have called the incidents terrorist attacks and placed the territory of the self-proclaimed Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic PMR on high alert.

Russia is watching the situation very closely, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, but added there was no plans to arrange a meeting with Moldovan President Maia Sandu at the moment.

Transnistria, a largely Russian-speaking region, declared independence amid the breakup of the Soviet Union, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. A Russian peacekeeping force has been stationed in the region since the 1992 armistice froze the conflict with Chisinau.