Ukrainian drones struck a significant gas processing plant in southern Russia, sparking a hearth 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 could have to present up territory in exchange for an end to Moscow’s greater than three-and-a-half-year invasion, in the most recent of apparent reversals on pursue peace.
The Orenburg plant, run by state-owned gas giant Gazprom and situated in a region of the identical name near the Kazakh border, is an element of a production and processing complex that’s certainly one of the world’s largest facilities of its kind, with an annual capability of 45 billion cubic meters. It handles gas condensate from Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field, alongside Orenburg’s own oil and gas fields.
In keeping with regional Gov. Yevgeny Solntsev, the drone strikes set fire to a workshop on the plant and damaged a part of it. The Kazakh Energy Ministry on Sunday said, citing a notification from Gazprom, that the plant was temporarily unable to process gas originating in Kazakhstan, “resulting from an emergency situation following a drone attack.”
Ukraine’s General Staff said in an announcement Sunday that a “large-scale fire” erupted on the Orenburg plant, and that certainly one of its gas processing and purification units was damaged.
Kyiv has ramped up attacks in recent months on Russian energy facilities it says each fund and directly fuel Moscow’s war effort.
Trump says Ukraine could have to present up land for peace
Trump appeared to edge back within the direction of pressing Ukraine to present up on retaking land it has lost to Russia, in exchange for an end to Moscow’s aggression.
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Asked in a Fox News interview conducted Thursday whether Russian President Vladimir Putin can be open to ending the war “without taking significant property from Ukraine,” Trump responded: “Well, he’s going to take something.”
“They fought and he has a whole lot of property. He’s won certain property,” Trump said. “We’re the one nation that goes in, wins a war after which leaves.”
The interview was aired on Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” but was conducted before Trump spoke to Putin and Zelenskyy last week.
The comments amounted to a different shift in position on the war by the U.S. leader. In recent weeks, Trump had shown growing impatience with Putin and expressed greater openness to helping Ukraine win the war.
In Thursday’s interview, he was noncommittal about sending Tomahawk missiles requested by Ukraine, saying “I’m it” but expressing concern about depleting U.S. weapons stocks.
“We’d like them for ourselves too,” Trump said. “We are able to’t give all our weapons to Ukraine. We just can’t do this.”
Contrary to Kyiv’s hopes, Trump didn’t commit to providing it with Tomahawks following their meeting on the White House on Friday. The missiles can be the longest-range weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal and would allow it to strike targets deep inside Russia, including Moscow, with precision.
Deliveries of Tomahawks could provide leverage to assist push the Kremlin into negotiations, analysts say, after Trump expressed frustration over Putin’s refusal to budge on key features of a possible peace deal.
Russians modified bombs for deeper strikes
Meanwhile, Ukrainian prosecutors claim that Moscow is modifying its deadly aerial-guided bombs to strike civilians deeper in Ukraine. Local authorities in Kharkiv said Russia struck a residential neighborhood using a brand new rocket-powered aerial bomb for the primary time.
Kharkiv’s regional prosecutor’s office said in an announcement that Russia used the weapon called the UMPB-5R, which might travel as much as 130 kilometres (80 miles), in an attack on the town of Lozava on Saturday afternoon. The town lies 150 kilometres (93 miles) south of Kharkiv, a substantial distance for the weapon to fly.
Russia continued to strike other parts of Ukraine closer to the front line. Within the Dnipropetrovsk region, at the very least 11 people were injured after Russian drones hit the Shakhtarske area. Not less than 14 five-story buildings and a store were damaged, said acting regional Gov. Vladyslav Haivanenko.
A Russian strike also hit a coal mine within the Dnipropetrovk region. Some 192 miners were delivered to the surface without injury, the corporate that operates the mine said.
Ukraine’s General Staff also claimed a separate drone strike hit Russia’s Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery, within the Samara region near Orenburg, sparking a blaze and damaging its predominant refining units.
The Novokuibyshevsk facility, operated by Russian gas major Rosneft, has an annual capability of 4.9 million tonnes, and seems over 20 sorts of oil-based products. Russian authorities didn’t immediately acknowledge the Ukrainian claim or discuss any damage.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in an announcement early Sunday that its air defense forces had shot down 45 Ukrainian drones throughout the night, including 12 over the Samara region, one over the Orenburg region and 11 over the Saratov region neighboring Samara.
In turn, Ukraine’s air force reported Sunday that Russia throughout the night launched 62 drones into Ukrainian territory. It said 40 of those were shot down, or veered off target resulting from electronic jamming.
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