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Ukraine has launched its second drone attack this week against oil refineries in Russia.
An oil refinery in Russia’s southern Volgograd region temporarily caught fire after an overnight Ukrainian drone attack, the regional governor said on Friday.
Andrei Bocharov, the governor, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that Russian air defences had repelled an attack on his region by eight drones.
“As a result of falling debris from one of the drones, a fire broke out on the territory of an oil refinery, which was promptly extinguished. One injured refinery worker was hospitalised,” he said.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram that the Volgograd oil refinery, which he described as one of Russia’s largest, had been struck.
Ukraine has carried out frequent air attacks on Russian refineries, oil depots and industrial sites in an attempt to cripple key infrastructure underpinning Russia’s war effort.
This week it claimed to have struck and set on fire a Lukoil refinery, Russia’s fourth largest, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow.
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Tom Watling31 January 2025 08:26
Ukraine downs 59 of 102 Russian drones, air force says
Ukraine’s air defences shot down 59 of 102 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack on Friday, the air force said.
It said that 37 drones were “lost”, referring to the use of electronic warfare to redirect them. Russian drones caused damage in the northeastern Sumy region, the Odesa region in the south and the central Cherkasy region, the air force said, without providing further details.
Tom Watling31 January 2025 08:09
Father of ex-British soldier captured by Russia fears son will be tortured after fighting for Ukraine
James Scott Rhys Anderson, 22, was taken prisoner in the Kursk area of Russia, state news agency RIA reported, citing a security source.
In a video posted on unofficial pro-war Russian Telegram channels, a young bearded man wearing military clothing with what appears to be his hands tied behind his back, says in English that he formerly served in the British army.
Arpan Rai31 January 2025 07:49
Why does Russia want to capture Pokrovsk?
Russian forces are starting to encircle the strategically important eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after capturing a string of villages to its south, and Ukraine has halted production at its only coking coal mine nearby.
Pokrovsk is a road and rail hub in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and had a pre-war population of some 60,000 people. Most people have fled and only around 7,000 residents remain, according to a Ukrainian police statement in late January.
It lies on a key road used by the Ukrainian military to supply other embattled eastern outposts, including the towns of Chasiv Yar, which is consumed by heavy fighting, and Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region.
Moscow says it has annexed Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and sees taking control of Pokrovsk as an important stepping stone to incorporating the entire region into Russia.
Kyiv and the West reject Russia’s territorial claims as illegal and accuse Moscow of prosecuting a war of colonial conquest.
Control of the city, which the Russian media call “the gateway to Donetsk”, would allow Moscow to severely disrupt Ukrainian supply lines along the eastern front and boost its campaign to capture Chasiv Yar, which sits on higher ground offering potential control of a wider area.
Arpan Rai31 January 2025 07:33
Fire doused at Russian oil refinery in Volgograd region
An oil refinery in Russia’s southern Volgograd region caught fire after an overnight Ukrainian drone attack, but the blaze has now been put out, the regional governor said today.
Andrei Bocharov, the governor, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that Russian air defences had repelled an attack on his region by eight drones.
“As a result of falling debris from one of the drones, a fire broke out on the territory of an oil refinery, which was promptly extinguished. One injured refinery worker was hospitalised,” he said.
Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that 49 Ukrainian drones had been downed over the country overnight, including 25 drones in the southern Rostov region and eight in the Volgograd region.
Drones had also been detected and destroyed in the Kursk, Yaroslavl, Belgorod, Voronezh, and Krasnodar regions, it said.
Arpan Rai31 January 2025 07:19
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Tom Watling31 January 2025 06:00
A Russian drone strikes an apartment building in Ukraine, killing at least 4
A Russian drone blasted a hole in an apartment building in northeastern Ukraine during a nighttime attack, killing at least four people and injuring nine others, officials said yesterday.
The Shahed drone blew out a wall and surrounding windows in the apartment block in Sumy, a major city, just after 1am, the Sumy regional administration said. A child was among the injured, it said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called it “a terrible tragedy, a terrible Russian crime.”
The war between Russia and Ukraine, which enters its fourth year next month and shows no signs of ending, has killed more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.
Arpan Rai31 January 2025 05:00
James Scott Rhys Anderson: Who is ex-British soldier captured in Russia’s Kursk region?
James Scott Rhys Anderson, who says he is a former British soldier, has been captured in Russia’s Kursk region while fighting for Ukraine, according to Russian state media.
The 22-year-old man’s father told the Daily Mail he feared his son would be tortured, while the UK Foreign Office confirmed it was “supporting the family of a British man following reports of his detention”.
His capture would mark one of the first known cases of a Western national being captured on Russian soil while fighting for Ukraine.
So, who is Mr Anderson, and how did this man come to be captured by Russian forces?
Arpan Rai31 January 2025 04:45
Russia brings terrorism charges against British man caught fighting for Ukraine
A British man captured fighting on the Ukrainian side in Russia’s Kursk region will face terrorism and mercenary charges that could see him jailed for years, Russian state investigators said yesterday.
Moscow announced in November it had captured James Anderson, describing him as a former British soldier.
British foreign minister David Lammy said at the time he was aware of the case and London would do all it could to offer him assistance.
Russia’s Investigative Committee released a video yesterday showing a handcuffed Anderson dressed in a prison uniform with a shaven head, being brought into a room for questioning and confirming his name.
In a statement, it said he would face terrorism and mercenary charges for participating “in an armed conflict as a mercenary on the territory of the Russian Federation for financial remuneration”.
It did not say how Anderson pleaded to the charges, some of which are punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
Arpan Rai31 January 2025 04:11
