Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday that Russia is already a weaker military and is a weaker state (since its invasion of Ukraine) and that the US wants Russia to be unable to threaten its neighbors again in the future.

The US is watching events in the sovereign nation of Moldova closely, Kirby noted, adding that it is too soon to comment on recent explosions in the government buildings of the self-declared breakaway region of Transnistria. Russia is being accused by Ukraine of staging false flag operations in Transnistria, a region occupied by Russian troops, that could justify opening a new front to the Russo-Ukraine war. Moldova's region of Transnistria borders Ukraine to the southwest (near Odesa).