Ukraine-Russia warfare newest: Kyiv claims profitable Storm Shadow strike on main Russian oil refinery | EUROtoday

Russia sees “slow but steady progress” in peace talks with the United States over Ukraine, international ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova mentioned on Thursday.

“In the negotiation process on a settlement of the Ukraine conflict, I mean in the negotiation process with the United States, there is slow but steady progress,” she mentioned.

Zakharova added that western European powers had been making an attempt to torpedo the progress and steered that the United States ought to counter such strikes.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says he spoke on Thursday for about an hour with US president Donald Trump’s particular envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner about easy methods to finish the warfare with Russia.

“It was a really good conversation: many details, good ideas that we discussed. There are some new ideas on how to bring real peace closer, and this concerns formats, meetings and, certainly, the timeline,” Zelensky mentioned on the Telegram app.

Trump has been pushing for a deal to finish the almost four-year-long warfare, and in latest weeks peace efforts led by Witkoff and Kushner have been slowly inching ahead.

Earlier this week, Zelensky offered a 20-point draft peace plan that he described as the primary framework for ending the warfare.

The draft is a slimmed-down model of an earlier 28-point plan that the United States beforehand mentioned with Russia and that was broadly seen as favouring Moscow, together with calls for that Kyiv cede territory and restrict its armed forces.

However, key territorial points stay unresolved within the new 20-point draft, Zelensky mentioned, including {that a} assembly with Trump can be required to resolve probably the most delicate questions.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov mentioned on Thursday that Moscow was analysing paperwork on ending the warfare that had been dropped at Russia by its particular envoy Kirill Dmitriev from the United States.

Zelensky mentioned Ukraine’s prime negotiator, Rustem Umerov, deliberate to carry one other dialog with US negotiators later within the day.

“We are truly working 24/7 to bring closer the end of this brutal Russian war against Ukraine and to ensure that all documents and steps are realistic, effective and reliable,” he mentioned.

Appearing to check with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian chief Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned: “Today, we all share one dream.And we make one wish – for all of us. ‘May he perish’, each of us may think to ourselves.

“But when we turn to God, of course, we ask for something greater, we ask for peace for Ukraine. We fight for it, we pray for it, we deserve it.”

A court docket in Russia on Thursday convicted a pro-war activist and critic of president Vladimir Putin of justifying terrorism and sentenced him to 6 years in jail.

Sergei Udaltsov, the chief of the Left Front motion that opposes Putin and is affiliated with the Communist Party, was arrested final 12 months.

According to Russian impartial information website Mediazona, the fees towards him stem from an article Udaltsov posted on-line in assist of one other group of Russian activists accused of forming a terrorist organisation. Those activists had been convicted earlier this month and handed sentences starting from 16 to 22 years in jail.

Udaltsov has rejected the fees towards him as fabricated. On Thursday, he denounced the decision as “shameful” and mentioned he was occurring a starvation strike, Mediazona reported.

According to the court docket ruling, the activist will likely be serving his sentence in a most safety penal colony.Udaltsov was a distinguished opposition determine through the 2011-12 mass protests in Russia, triggered by experiences of widespread rigging of a parliamentary election. In February 2012, he took half in a gathering that then-president Dmitry Medvedev held with numerous opposition figures.

Russian authorities have ramped up their crackdown on dissent and free speech after the Kremlin despatched troops into Ukraine, relentlessly focusing on rights teams, impartial media, members of civil society organisations, LGBTQ+ activists and a few non secular teams. Hundreds of individuals have been jailed and hundreds of others have fled the nation.

In December 2023, a Moscow court docket sentenced Udaltsov to 40 hours of obligatory labor for violating procedures referring to organising a rally after he was detained on Red Square, the place he tried to unfurl a flag with the picture of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, in accordance with Russia’s state information company Tass.

Udaltsov was beforehand imprisoned in 2014 and sentenced to 4 years on fees associated to his position in organising a 2012 demonstration towards Putin that turned turbulent. He was launched in 2017.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has mentioned that Ukrainian representatives and US negotiators have mentioned methods to convey “real peace closer” throughout a dialog on Christmas Day.

“It was a really good conversation: many details, good ideas, that we discussed,” Zelensky mentioned on Telegram. “There are some new ideas on how to bring the real peace closer, and it concerns formats, meetings, and, certainly, the timeline.”

Earlier, we reported that the Ukrainian chief had taken half in a dialog with US particular envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and businessman Jared Kushner.

Poland scrambled fighter jets to intercept a Russian reconnaissance plane flying close to its airspace over the Baltic Sea and mentioned dozens of objects entered its airspace from Belarus in a single day, warning the incidents through the vacation interval might quantity to a provocation.

“Earlier today, over international waters in the Baltic Sea, Polish fighter jets intercepted, visually identified and escorted out of their area of responsibility a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flying near the borders of Polish airspace,” the Polish military mentioned yesterday.

Countries on Nato’s japanese flank have remained on heightened alert for potential airspace violations since September, when three Russian navy plane breached Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes, days after greater than 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace.

Poland’s National Security Bureau mentioned a number of dozen objects crossed into Polish airspace from the Belarusian aspect, with 4 up to now recognized as probably smuggling balloons.

“The mass nature of the airspace violations, their occurrence during the holiday season, the assessment of the Russian aircraft’s activity in the Baltic Sea, and similar incidents recently recorded in Lithuania may indicate a provocation disguised as a smuggling operation,” it mentioned.

The Belarusian and Russian embassies in Warsaw didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

A Russian court docket sentenced a pro-war activist and critic of President Vladimir Putin of justifying terrorism to 6 years in jail on Thursday.

According to Russian impartial information website Mediazona, the fees towards him stem from an article Udaltsov posted on-line in assist of one other group of Russian activists accused of forming a terrorist organisation.

Those activists had been handed sentences starting from 16 to 22 years in jail after being convicted earlier this month.

Udaltsov has rejected the fees towards him as fabricated. On Thursday, he denounced the decision as “shameful” and mentioned he was occurring a starvation strike, Mediazona reported.

Russian president Vladimir Putin advised former US president George W Bush that Ukraine was part of Russia, in accordance with newly launched transcripts.

The feedback are mentioned to have been made in April 2001, in accordance with the Telegraph.

“What really happened? Soviet goodwill changed the world, voluntarily,” Putin is reported to have advised Bush at a summit in Slovenia.

“And Russians gave up thousands of square kilometers of territory, voluntarily. Unheard of.”

He added: “Ukraine, part of Russia for centuries, given away. Kazakhstan, given away. The Caucasus too. Hard to imagine, and done by party bosses.”

Ukraine has struck a significant Russian oil refinery utilizing British-supplied missiles, Kyiv mentioned, in an escalation of assaults on Moscow’s power infrastructure.

Storm Shadow missiles hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov area, triggering blasts, in accordance with the Ukrainian General Staff.

“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it mentioned on Telegram.

Ukrainian officers mentioned the ability had been a key provider of diesel and jet gasoline for Russian forces combating in Ukraine.

London authorised Kyiv to make use of Storm Shadow missiles towards targets inside Russia final 12 months, with the primary confirmed strikes reported in November.

Separately, Ukrainian long-range drones hit oil product storage tanks on the southern port of Temryuk within the Krasnodar area and a fuel processing plant in Orenburg, round 1,400km from the Ukrainian border. Russian officers mentioned two tanks caught hearth in Temryuk, with flames spreading throughout about 2,000 sq. metres.

Both sides have intensified strikes on power websites in latest months, as Kyiv seeks to curb Russia’s oil revenues.

Elsewhere, Russia mentioned there was “slow but steady progress” in talks with the United States, although international ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused western European international locations of undermining negotiations.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, mentioned talks with US figures had produced “good ideas” on shifting nearer to peace.

Laurent Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024. Russian authorities accused him of failing to register as a “foreign agent” whereas gathering info on Russia’s “military and military-technical activities” that might be used to undermine nationwide safety.

He is serving a three-year sentence in Russia and reportedly going through new fees of espionage.

The cost carries a most sentence of 5 years in jail.

The arrest got here amid heightened tensions between Moscow and Paris, following feedback by French president Emmanuel Macron about the potential of deploying French troops to Ukraine.

Vinatier’s legal professionals requested the court docket to impose a advantageous, however in October 2024 a decide sentenced him to 3 years in jail. France’s international ministry described the punishment as “extremely severe” and referred to as for the scholar’s instant launch.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, detentions on fees of espionage and the gathering of delicate info have grow to be more and more frequent amid what critics describe as a extremely politicised authorized system.

Beyond condemning Vinatier’s sentence, France’s international ministry urged Russia to abolish its international agent legal guidelines, which topic these designated to heightened authorities scrutiny and sweeping restrictions.

Violations can lead to prison prosecution.

The ministry mentioned the laws “contributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, like the freedom of association, the freedom of opinion and the freedom of expression”.

Vinatier is an adviser to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Switzerland-based non-governmental organisation, which mentioned in June 2024 that it was doing “everything possible to assist” him.

Ahead of the decision, Vinatier appealed for leniency, citing his two kids and his aged dad and mom, whom he helps.