Ukraine War
Ukraine’s long-range strikes on refineries inside Russia have reduced Moscow’s oil refining capacity by 20%, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, citing intelligence from Western governments.
Over 90% of those deep strikes on Russian soil were carried out by long-range weapons made in Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy.
He said Ukraine needs additional foreign financial help to produce more of them.
“We just need to work on this every day,” he said in comments to the media on Monday that were embargoed until Tuesday.
Oil exports play a key role in funding Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and new sanctions from the European Union and the United States are aiming to cut into Moscow’s oil and gas export earnings.
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump warns Putin ‘we have a nuclear submarine off your shore’ after cruise missile test The Independent
from news.google.com
SINGAPORE: Chinese state oil majors have suspended purchases of seaborne Russian oil after the United States imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Moscow’s two biggest oil companies, multiple trade sources said on Thursday (Oct 23).
The move comes as refiners in India, the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil, are set to sharply cut their crude imports from Moscow to comply with the US sanctions imposed over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
A sharp drop in oil demand from Russia’s two largest customers will put a strain on Moscow’s oil revenues and force the world’s top importers to seek alternative supplies and push up global prices.
TRUMP: ‘I JUST FELT IT WAS TIME’: His peace overtures rebuffed by Russian President Vladimir Putin yet again, President Donald Trump reluctantly ordered what he called “massive sanctions,” on Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in the hope that targeting Putin’s primary source of income will force him to agree to freeze the Ukraine war at the current battle lines.
“These are tremendous sanctions. These are very big against their two big oil companies,” Trump said in a social media post by the White House. “And we hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”
“They’re massive sanctions,” Trump said during an Oval Office sit-down with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. “They do a lot of oil. And hopefully it will push, hopefully he’ll [Putin] become reasonable, and hopefully Zelensky will be reasonable too.”
On the eve of the EU summit, Ukraine and Sweden signed a deal Wednesday for up to 150 Gripen E fighter jets for Kyiv over the next decade, with the first deliveries expected in 2026.
from www.euronews.com
President Donald Trump has called off plans to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, just days after he floated another round of Ukraine peace talks.
A White House official confirmed that Trump is not meeting his Russian counterpart “in the immediate future,” ABC News reported.
It comes after Trump suggested a summit in Hungary.
Trump’s reversal comes after a phone call on Monday between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
EU’s New Sanctions Boost Allies’ Push to Target Russian Energy Bloomberg.com
from news.google.com
Russia said Thursday that new U.S. sanctions on its oil industry risked hurting diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine war, and that it had developed a “strong immunity” to them.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies on Wednesday, complaining that his peace talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin were not going “anywhere.”
Trump held off introducing new restrictions against Russia for months, but his patience snapped after plans for a fresh summit with Putin in Budapest collapsed.
Russia has been subjected to a blistering assault from a new type of Ukrainian missile, affectionately named the Flamingo.
This formidable cruise missile can carry a payload of 1,150kg, making it one of the largest missiles of its kind globally, and boasts a range of 3,000km, nearly double that of the fearsome Tomahawk missiles. This development comes as Trump seems hesitant to supply any US missiles.
Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Fire Point, the brains behind this creation, claim it can land within a mere 14 metres of its intended target.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill, the Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said that he had “complete confidence” in Donald Trump’s ability to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. He evaded a question about whether he was concerned that the president has persuaded Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “go softer” on Russia.
“He is the only one that can get this done,” Rutte said. “You have a president with a lot of experience because of his first term in office, and who has a clear vision on bringing this war to a durable and lasting end.”
Rutte will meet with Trump in a few hours. “We will discuss further how we from Nato can be helpful in delivering his vision of getting a full-scale peace in Ukraine, which, of course, we all pray for after his enormous success in Gaza,” Rutte said earlier.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that US president Donald Trump’s call for Ukraine and Russia to stop at the current frontlines was “a good compromise”, reports Reuters.
But Zelenskyy, who is visiting Nordic countries, said he doubted that Russian president Vladimir Putin would support it. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Zelenskyy told reporters:
[Trump] proposed ‘Stay where we stay and begin conversation’. I think that was a good compromise, but I’m not sure that Putin will support it, and I said it to the [US] president.
Plans are on hold for U.S. President Donald Trump to sit down with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to talk about resolving the war in Ukraine, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The meeting had been announced last week. It was supposed to take place in Budapest, although a date had not been set.
The decision was made following a call between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,” the official said in a statement to Global News.
“Preparations for the summit are continuing,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying. “I don’t see any major obstacles.”
He added: “It’s a difficult process, I admit – but that’s precisely what diplomats are for.”
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other with heavy overnight missile attacks as renewed uncertainty surrounded the US-led peace effort.
Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that Russian attacks had killed six people, including two children, in Kyiv and the nearby region, and forced power outages nationwide.
Slovak PM Fico open to backing 19th Russia sanctions package – with conditions Euractiv
from news.google.com
Russian presidential investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev has denied that the planned meeting in Budapest has been scrapped
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special economic envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, has denied reports that plans for a summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump in Budapest have been scrapped.
Dmitriev commented after multiple US media outlets cited an unnamed White House official who claimed there were no plans for a Putin-Trump summit “in the immediate future.” Some outlets interpreted the remark as meaning that the meeting had been canceled or postponed indefinitely.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces that featured practice missile launches, an exercise that came as his planned summit on Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump was put on hold.
Ukrainian drones struck a major gas processing plant in southern Russia, sparking a fire and forcing it to suspend its intake of gas from Kazakhstan, Russian and Kazakh authorities said Sunday.
U.S. President Donald Trump meanwhile suggested that Kyiv may have to give up territory in exchange for an end to Moscow’s more than three-and-a-half-year invasion, in the latest of apparent reversals on how to pursue peace.
The Orenburg plant, run by state-owned gas giant Gazprom and located in a region of the same name near the Kazakh border, is part of a production and processing complex that is one of the world’s largest facilities of its kind, with an annual capacity of 45 billion cubic meters. It handles gas condensate from Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field, alongside Orenburg’s own oil and gas fields.
President Donald Trump has worked ardently to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine — a war that has resulted in millions of casualties and transformed much of Eastern Ukraine into drone-netted wasteland.
Fresh off brokering a tenuous ceasefire in Gaza and speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday.
‘They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!’
Austria to shutter its last Ukrainian refugee arrival center by year’s end Euromaidan Press
from news.google.com
U.S. President Donald Trump has signaled a shift in support toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin as he looks for a quick end to the war in Ukraine, likely striking fear into Ukrainian officials.
Trump held a tense meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, with the potential supply of U.S. long-range cruise missiles, Tomahawks, on the agenda.
Zelenskyy walked away from the meeting not only empty-handed, but apparently upbraided by Trump, who said Ukraine should accept Russia’s terms for ending the war — by handing over the entire eastern territory of Donbas, the epicenter of ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
Offering Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine has been suggested as a way of pressuring Russia to return to the negotiating table.
from www.washingtonpost.com
President Donald Trump has suggested that the U.S. could send Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine if Russia refuses to move toward a settlement in the ongoing war.
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump described the Tomahawk as “an incredible weapon, a very offensive weapon.”
Trump hinted he would use the prospect of deployment as leverage in upcoming discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I may tell him [Putin] that if the war is not settled, we may very well,” Trump said.
ZELENSKY HOPING ‘PEACE COMES FOR UKRAINE AS WELL’: Still basking in the glow of his pivotal role ending the bloodshed in Gaza, President Donald Trump is reengaging in the peace negotiations he essentially gave up on last month, inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington to discuss how to put more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to seriously consider ending the war which is well into its third year, and has claimed hundred of thousand of lives.
“I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support,” Zelensky posted on X. “The main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.”
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev on Monday warned U.S. President Donald Trump that the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine could “end badly” for him.
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, appeared to suggest that Russia might issue a nuclear response if Ukraine receives and fires the long-range rockets at targets inside Russia.
“The supply of these missiles could end badly for everyone. First and foremost for Trump,” Medvedev wrote in a post on Telegram after the American president repeated his own threat of supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Russia does not agree to end the war.
Behind Russia’s battlefield drone surge in Ukraine? Chinese factories. The Washington Post
from news.google.com
The European Union is edging closer to agreeing on new sanctions on Russia, the 19th round since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago, but two EU member states are still holding out before giving the green light. And perhaps surprisingly the perennial EU sanctions skeptic Hungary isn’t one of them. Instead, it is Austria and Slovakia that are hesitant to endorse the package — and their issues aren’t related to the proposed measures against Moscow at all. Bratislava has concerns about EU energy policy, as well as the future of Slovakia’s automotive industry.
Tusk says extraditing Nord Stream suspect to Germany is ‘not in Poland’s interest’– www.euronews.com
The Ukrainian suspect, Volodymyr Z, who is wanted in Germany in connection with the September 2022 blasts, was detained near Warsaw in late September.
A Polish court ruled on Monday that he must remain in custody for another 40 days while it considers Germany’s request to extradite him under a European arrest warrant.
Speaking on Tuesday, Tusk said it was ultimately the court’s decision to decide whether to hand over Volodymyr Z to Germany — and that the government would not interfere.
However, he once again stated Poland’s opposition to the pipelines, which it has long argued made Europe too dependent on Russian energy.
“The problem of Europe, the problem of Ukraine, the problem of Lithuania and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built,” Tusk told a press conference.
“It is certainly not in the interest of Poland … to hand over this citizen to a foreign country,” he added.
Germany will give its federal police the power to shoot down drones, following the disruption caused by recent unknown drone sightings at Munich Airport.
On Wednesday, the cabinet approved the new reform, which now awaits approval in parliament.
The move comes after suspicious drone incursions at Munich Airport led to air traffic being suspended for several hours last week, with thousands of passengers directly affected.
Other European countries, including Denmark and Lithuania, have also spotted rogue drones in recent weeks.
In response, EU leaders such as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have attributed the incidents to Russian hybrid warfare, something Moscow denies.
Days after the drone sightings in Munich, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said federal police reform is intended to reorganise responsibilities and make it easier to defend against drones.