Dec 23 (Reuters) – A Ukrainian overnight drone attack sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, the region’s governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said on Tuesday.
There were no injuries reported, Vladimirov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Vladimirov did not specify which facility was on fire.
Russian oil major Lukoil runs the Stavrolen petrochemical complex at Budyonnovsk in Stavropol and the region also hosts gas pipeline infrastructure and fuel storage sites that make it part of Russia’s broader energy and chemicals system.
Ukraine, which has reportedly attacked the Stavrolen plant before, has said its strikes inside Russia and away from the front line are aimed at crippling Russia’s military effort in a war that Moscow launched nearly four years ago.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine’s emergency service said Saturday, as a a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war.
The discussions are part of the Trump administration’s monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week. Ukraine’s chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said much will depend on the U.S. posture after discussions with the Russians.
Speaking at a news conference in Kyiv with Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, Zelenskyy said that “the key question remains how the United States responds after consultations with the Russians. At this point, I honestly don’t know, but I will know later today.”
Ukraine and Portugal signed an agreement to establish joint production of maritime drones, Zelenskyy said. “This is one of the most promising areas of defense cooperation. What matters now is delivering results, and all parts of Europe must have sufficient capabilities to counter any threats,” he said.
Ukraine targets a Russian oil rig and a patrol ship
Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the center of the strike late Friday, the emergency service said in a Telegram post. Trucks caught fire in the parking lot and cars were also damaged.
The port was struck with ballistic missiles, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region.
Moscow did not immediately acknowledge reports of the attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that over the previous day, it had struck unspecified “transport and storage infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” along with energy facilities and those supplying Kyiv’s war effort.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil rig, the military patrol ship Okhotnik and other facilities, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Saturday. It said the ship was patrolling in the Caspian Sea near an oil and gas production platform. The extent of the damage was still being clarified, it said.
A general view of the port on the Black Sea on July 7, 2025 in Odesa, Ukraine.
Valentyna Polishchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
The drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil and gas field as also hit. The facility is operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil. Ukrainian drones also struck a radar system in the Krasnosilske area of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian government or Lukoil. The company is one of two Russian oil majors — alongside state-owned Gazprom — recent U.S. sanctions that aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue that helps it sustain the war.
Kyiv has used similar arguments to justify months of long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which it says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin’s all-out invasion, soon to enter its fifth year.
Trump’s peace push set to continue Saturday
U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signaled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.
On Friday, Putin voiced confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.
European Union leaders on Friday agreed to provide $106 billion to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed on capital markets.
After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need $161 billion in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needs the money by spring.
Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is set to meet with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on Saturday, according to a U.S. official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that hasn’t yet been publicly announced.
The official said Witkoff and Kushner will sit down with Dmitriev, after meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin for talks on U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, territorial concessions and other aspects of the American-authored plan.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said late Friday that a Ukrainian delegation had met with American and European partners in the U.S. He gave few details, but said they agreed to continue “joint work in the near future.”
Asked about the meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow was preparing for contacts with the U.S. to learn about the results of the meetings in Berlin, but he didn’t give details.
MOSCOW, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual end-of-year press conference on Friday.
Below are some of his comments. He spoke in Russian and his words were translated by Reuters.
“So far, we don’t really see such readiness (form Ukraine for peace talks)… But still we see … certain signals, including from the Kyiv regime, that they are ready to engage in some kind of dialogue. The only thing I want to say is that we have always said this: we are ready and willing to end this conflict peacefully, based on the principles I outlined … at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and by addressing the root causes that led to this crisis.”
(Compiled by Felix Light, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
PARIS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday it was too early to say whether a one-month delay to decide on an EU trade deal with South America’s Mercosur bloc will be enough to meet the conditions set by France, but that he hoped so.
Macron, who has pushed for stronger guarantees to protect farmers, said he hoped the EU and Mercosur nations will approve in January measures to ensure South American imports meet the same requirements than European ones.
That would make the pact a “new” Mercosur-EU deal, he said.
BRUSSELS, Dec 19 (Reuters) – European Union leaders could agree to borrow on the market, against the security of the EU budget, to keep Ukraine financed in 2026 and 2027, a draft text of the leaders’ conclusions seen by Reuters showed on Friday.
But the leaders still want their governments and the European Parliament to continue working on setting up financing for Ukraine based on frozen Russian assets, the draft text said.
The joint borrowing against the EU budget would be with the exclusion of Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, said the draft, which has yet to be approved by the leaders.
WARSAW, Dec 18 (Reuters) – European Union leaders agree that it would be fair to use Russian assets to finance Ukraine, but there are many technical points that need to be ironed out, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday.
“We have definitely made a breakthrough, everyone agrees that it is worth negotiating and it would be fair to use Russian assets, but some countries will fight until the end to maximize their guarantees,” he told reporters in Brussels.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Pawel Florkiewicz, writing by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk)
KYIV, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Russian glide bomb attacks in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region wounded 26 people including a child on Wednesday, according to the regional governor.
“The Russians launched guided aerial bombs, destroying residential buildings and damaging infrastructure and an educational institution,” governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram..
Three strikes hit the regional capital and its outskirts, he added.
Ukraine’s state emergencies service said work to clear the rubble was still ongoing.
The city of Zaporizhzhia, whose southern edge is less than 25 km from the frontline, has been bombed regularly by Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa and Max Hunder; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
BRUSSELS, Dec 17 (Reuters) – Europe must be responsible for its own security, European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.
“This is no longer an option. It is a must,” she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
She added that Europe “cannot afford to let others define its worldview,” adding that while the U.S. national security strategy is right to say that Europe’s share of global GDP is declining, the United States is on “the same path.”
(Reporting by Lili Bayer, Writing by Louise Rasmussen, editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout)
MOSCOW, Dec 16 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday that a Christmas truce that Ukraine has proposed would depend on whether a peace deal is reached or not.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Kyiv supported the idea of a ceasefire, in particular for strikes on energy infrastructure, during the Christmas period.
Asked about the idea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The question now is whether we, as President (Donald) Trump says, will reach a deal or not.”
Peskov said Russia was unlikely to participate in such a ceasefire if Ukraine was focused on “short-term, unviable solutions” rather than a lasting settlement.
“We want peace. We don’t want a truce to give Ukraine a breathing space and prepare for a continuation of the war,” Peskov told reporters.
“We want to stop this war, achieve our goals, secure our interests, and guarantee peace in Europe for the future. That’s what we want.”
Peskov said Moscow had not yet seen details of proposals on NATO-style security guarantees for Ukraine that U.S. and European officials said Washington has offered to provide.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Gleb Stolyarov and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gleb Bryanski)
NEW YORK, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s offer to forgo joining the NATO military alliance probably will not significantly change the course of peace talks, two security experts said on Sunday.
During negotiations with U.S. envoys over a potential Ukraine-Russia peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday offered to drop Ukraine’s NATO aspirations. Zelenskiy had said security guarantees from the United States, Europe and others instead of joining NATO was a compromise from Ukraine.
“This doesn’t move the needle at all,” said Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. “It’s an effort to appear reasonable.”
NATO membership for Ukraine has not been realistic in a long time anyway, said Logan and Andrew Michta, a professor of strategic studies at the University of Florida. Michta called Ukraine’s NATO admittance a “non-issue” at this point.
There are other ways for nations to try ensuring Ukraine’s security, Logan said. U.S. President Donald Trump, in response to Zelenskiy’s offer, may commit to the same things the United States has already done to support Ukraine, such as sending weapons and sanctioning Russia, Logan said.
Not everyone dismissed Zelenskiy’s offer.
Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration and now head of the Global Situation Room consultancy, called Ukraine’s concession “significant and substantive.”
“It’s a way for Zelenskiy to contrast Ukraine’s willingness for significant concessions for peace at a time when Moscow has been short on any significant concessions,” Bruen said. “The question is what did Zelenskiy get in return for backing off a pretty ironclad promise to the Ukrainian people?”
Bruen speculated Trump may have promised to patrol Ukraine’s skies or respond to aircraft incursions. The United States may also increase supplies of military aid if Russia were to re-launch a large-scale military offensive, he said.
“Ukraine has got to hedge bets on what Trump promises but they need more than a word,” he said. “They need action, some element, that is going to ensure Trump can’t easily wiggle out of these situations.”
(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Sergio Non and Chris Reese)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, but rejected the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia as he held talks with U.S. envoys on ending the war.
Zelenskyy sat down with U.S. President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Ukrainian leader posted pictures of the negotiating table with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sitting next to him, facing the U.S. delegation.
Responding to journalists’ questions in audio clips on a WhatsApp group chat, Zelenskyy emphasized the need for Ukraine to receive firm guarantees from the United States and European allies that would be similar to those offered to NATO members, after the U.S. and some European countries stonewalled Ukraine’s bid to join the military alliance.
“These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression,” he said. “And this is already a compromise on our part.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner arrives at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, December 14, 2025.
Axel Schmidt / REUTERS
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace, a demand rejected by Kyiv.
Zelenskyy said that the U.S. had floated an idea for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donetsk and create a demilitarized free economic zone there, a proposal he rejected as unworkable.
“I do not consider this fair, because who will manage this economic zone?” he said. “If we are talking about some buffer zone along the line of contact, if we are talking about some economic zone and we believe that only a police mission should be there and troops should withdraw, then the question is very simple. If Ukrainian troops withdraw 5–10 kilometers, for example, then why do Russian troops not withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?”
Zelenskyy described the issue as “very sensitive” and insisted on a freeze along the line of contact, saying that “today a fair possible option is we stand where we stand.”
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of the Donetsk region even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.
Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.
Speaking to Russian state TV in remarks broadcast Sunday, Ushakov said that “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive,” warning that Moscow will “have very strong objections.”
Ushakov added that the territorial issue was actively discussed in Moscow when Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin earlier this month. “The Americans know and understand our position,” he said.
Zelenskyy said he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday just before the talks with Mr. Trump’s envoys, thanking him on X for his support and adding that “we are coordinating closely and working together for the sake of our shared security.”
Macron vowed on X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned on Saturday during a party conference in Munich.
Putin has denied plans to restore the Soviet Union or attack any European allies.
Dec 14 (Reuters) – Talks between Ukrainian and U.S. officials on proposals for a settlement of the war in Ukraine ended after more than five hours on Sunday and are set to resume on Monday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said.
“They went on for more than five hours and ended for today with an agreement to resume tomorrow morning,” adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.
Lytvyn said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would comment on the talks on Monday once they were completed. Officials, Lytvyn said, were considering the draft documents.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Olena Harmash; Editing by Paul Simao)
KYIV, Dec 13 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s navy accused Russia of deliberately attacking a civilian Turkish vessel carrying sunflower oil to Egypt with a drone on Saturday, a day after Moscow hit two Ukrainian ports.
In a statement on Telegram, the navy said the vessel was called the Viva and had 11 Turkish citizens on board. It added that nobody was hurt and the vessel was continuing its journey to Egypt.
“The strike was carried out in the open sea in Ukraine’s exclusive economic zone, outside the range of Ukrainian air defence systems,” the statement said, accusing Russia of breaching maritime laws.
The navy said it was in contact with the ship’s captain.
On Friday, Russia attacked two Ukrainian ports, damaging three Turkish-owned vessels, according to Ukraine’s navy. A large fire broke out on one of those ships.
The attacks come after Moscow threatened to “cut Ukraine off from the sea” after Kyiv’s attacks damaged three ‘shadow fleet’ tankers heading to Russia to export its oil.
At least two people were killed in a drone attack in Russia’s southwestern Saratov region and parts of Ukraine went without power following targeted assaults on energy infrastructure, local authorities said Saturday, as U.S.-led peace talks on ending the war press on.
The drone attack damaged a residential building and several windows were also blown out at a kindergarten and clinic, said Saratov regional Gov. Roman Busargin.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had shot down 41 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight.
In Ukraine, Russia launched overnight drone and missile strikes on five Ukrainian regions, targeting energy and port infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia had sent over 450 drones and 30 missiles into Ukraine overnight.
“Thousands of families are now left without electricity after strikes last night in Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions,” he wrote on Telegram.
In this grab from a video provided by the Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine on Friday, Dec 12, 2025, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy records a video at the road entering of Kupiansk, Ukraine.
Press Service Of The President Of Ukraine via AP
An attack on the Black Sea city of Odesa caused grain silos to catch fire at the port, Ukrainian deputy prime minister and reconstruction minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.
Two people were wounded in attacks on the wider Odesa region, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
The latest round of attacks came after Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine. This underscores Moscow’s ambition to maintain its presence in Donbas post-war. Ukraine is likely to reject such a stance as U.S.-led negotiations drag on.
Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from the front line, Ushakov said in comments published in Russian business daily Kommersant.
Meanwhile, Germany is set to host Zelenskyy on Monday for talks as peace efforts gain momentum and European leaders seek to steer negotiations.
For months, American negotiators have tried to navigate the demands of each side as U.S. President Donald Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war while growing increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into a major obstacle over who keeps Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russian forces.
KYIV, Dec 12 (Reuters) – Russia attacked energy facilities in the southern Ukrainian Odesa region overnight, causing fires and blackouts, the local governor and emergency service said on Friday.
Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram the drone attack left several settlements in the region, where Ukraine’s main seaports are concentrated, without electricity.
Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector and infrastructure in recent weeks, targeting power stations and railway hubs as winter deepens and the war approaches its fourth anniversary.
Ukraine’s biggest power company DTEK said in a statement that one of its sub-stations and another unspecified energy facility belonging to another firm were hit.
DTEK said it had restored power to 40,000 customers, however 90,000 were still without.
Earlier this week, the government approved a series of measures to save electricity as entire regions often go without power following Russian attacks.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Tom Hogue)
NICOSIA, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Discussions on the need to tighten sanctions on Russia, including the possibility of a blanket ban on providing maritime services, should not be at the expense of legitimate businesses in the industry, key EU shipping nations Cyprus and Malta said.
The Group of Seven countries and the European Union are in talks to replace a price cap on Russian oil exports with a full maritime services ban in an attempt to reduce the oil revenue that helps finance Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters exclusively reported on Dec. 5.
Cyprus and Malta, who along with Greece have the largest fleets in the EU, said tightening sanctions should not target bona fide maritime businesses.
“Any shift away from the price cap must avoid pushing maritime services to non-EU jurisdictions, where the EU would lose oversight and, with it, the leverage needed to uphold European standards,” the Maltese government said in a statement.
“There needs to be a holistic approach,” Cypriot Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos said. He said that while additional pressure on Russia was needed, the focus should also be on sanctions dodging.
“That has many actors involved and undermines our collective effort,” he said.
Russia exports over a third of its oil in Western tankers, mostly to India and China, with the use of Western shipping services. The ban would end that trade, which is mostly done through the fleets of EU maritime nations including Cyprus, Malta and Greece.
The services ban could be part of the EU’s next package of sanctions against Russia, slated for early 2026, three sources told Reuters last week. The 27 nation EU would like to approve the ban together with a broader G7 agreement before proposing the ban in the package, two sources said.
Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze, who is visiting Cyprus, echoed Kombos’ comments. She said the discussion needed to be ‘calibrated’, and that it had also been discussed with the United States. “We have discussed how to increase sanctions efficiency,” she said.
(Reporting by Michele Kambas, Jonathan Saul and Chris Scicluna; Editing by Chris Reese and Nick Zieminski)
WASHINGTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump expressed concern on Wednesday that Ukraine had not had an election in a long time, putting additional pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
((Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Editing by Leslie Adler))
Russian drone and missile attacks in and around the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, killed at least three people early Saturday, officials said, as the country’s representatives traveled to the U.S. to work on a renewed push to end the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X that the delegation, headed by national security chief Rustem Umerov, was on its way to “swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, will meet Ukrainian officials Sunday in Florida, a senior U.S. official told CBS News.
A U.S. delegation is then expected to travel to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the second half of next week. The Kyiv City Military Administration said two people were killed in the strikes on the capital, and a woman died and eight were wounded in a combined missile and drone attack on the broader Kyiv region, according to the regional police.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 29 people were wounded in Kyiv, noting that falling debris from intercepted Russian drones hit residential buildings. He also said the western part of Kyiv had lost power.
Rescuers search for victims after a drone hit a residential building during Russia’s night missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday. Nov. 29, 2025.
Efrem Lukatsky / AP
U.S. President Donald Trump last week released a plan for ending the nearly four-year war. The 28-point proposal heavily favored Russia, prompting Zelenskyy to quickly engage with American negotiators. European leaders, fearing for their own future in the face of Russian aggression, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward accommodating their concerns.
Trump said Tuesday that his plan to end the war had been “fine-tuned” and that he’s sending envoy Steve Witkoff to Russia to meet with Putin and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials. He suggested he could eventually meet with Putin and Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations.
Zelenskyy announced Friday the resignation of his powerful chief of staff, Andrii Yermak, who was also the country’s lead negotiator in talks with the U.S, after anti-corruption investigators searched Yermak’s residence. The unprecedented search at the heart of Ukraine’s government was a blow to the Ukrainian leader, risking the disruption of his negotiating strategy at a time when Kyiv is under intense U.S. pressure to sign a peace deal.
People hide in an underground pedestrian crossing during Russia’s night missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.
Efrem Lukatsky / AP
In Russia, a major oil terminal near the port of Novorossiysk stopped operations Saturday after a strike by unmanned boats damaged one of its three mooring points, according to a statement from the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, or CPC, which owns the terminal.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, confirmed that Ukraine had carried out the attack.
“Ukrainian special forces worked on the Russian Federation, its energy sector and infrastructure. In particular, naval drones managed to destroy one of the three oil tanker berths of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in the Novorossiysk area,” he wrote on Telegram.
Months of Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries and terminals have aimed to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue the war.
Meanwhile, Kyiv and its western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the biting cold. A Ukrainian security service official from the SBU, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of their operations, said that Ukraine used domestically produced Sea Baby naval drones to strike two oil tankers in the Black Sea said to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” that evade sanctions.
The Kairos and Virat tankers were struck in quick succession late Friday afternoon, prompting rescue operations. Crew members on board both vessels were reported to be safe.
The SBU official sent a video of the alleged attack, purporting to show the destruction of two tankers at sea.
“The SBU continues to take active steps to curtail Russia’s financial capabilities to wage war against Ukraine. Sea Baby naval drones disabled ships that could transport oil worth almost $70 million and helped the Kremlin circumvent international sanctions,” the official told The Associated Press.
For two decades, Venezuela cultivated anti-American allies across the globe, from Russia and China to Cuba and Iran, in the hope of forming a new world order that could stand up to Washington.
Russia pounds Ukraine with deadly strikes as peace negotiations enter crucial stage – CBS News
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Russia attacked Kyiv in a deadly drone attack early Saturday, officials said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he’s sent an envoy to the U.S. to continue peace negotiations.
