US and European officials are increasingly concerned that Russia's war on Ukraine could spread to other countries, report says

• Top Western officials fear the Ukraine war could spread, The New York Times reported.
• Officials said the war could last for several years and other nations could be dragged in.

There is growing concern among US and European officials that the war in Ukraine could spill beyond its borders and engulf other countries, The New York Times reported.

Officials from Western countries allied with Ukraine in the war against Russia fear a possible spread of the conflict in three ways, the report claims.

They fear it could physically spread into neighbouring states, spread into cyberspace through hacking and other cyber attacks, and spread into NATO countries facing a cutoff of Russian oil or gas.

According to the NYT, the concerns are founded on the belief that the war could drag on for several years.

It could result in a more direct, Cold War-style confrontation between Russia and the US as the superpowers seek to reduce each others strength, according to the report.

In recent weeks, the conflict has impacted several nations near Ukraine. Russia has cut gas supplies to NATO states Poland and Bulgaria, there have been a series of mysterious explosions in cities in Russia, and Russia has menaced Finland and Sweden after the Nordic states said they were seeking to join NATO.

There have also been explosions this week in Transnistria, a Russian-controlled region in Ukraine's southern neighbor Moldova, raising concerns the conflict may spread to the state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech Wednesday warned against Western intervention in Ukraine, saying that "if someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast."

Seth Jones, director of the European Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Times that "the risk of a widening war is serious right now."

Russia had expected a swift victory in Ukraine, but with its forces repelled from the Kyiv region by the Ukrainian military, it has refocused its campaign in eastern Ukraine that is advancing slowly.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday said that the US aimed to weaken Russia so that it would be unable to launch another invasion, marking an abrupt shift in US military strategy and signalling that the US did not expect an end to the conflict in the near future.