[🇺🇦] Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

[Saif]

Ukraine strikes Russian oil depot, aviation plant

Ukraine fired a wave of drones at Russia overnight, sparking a blaze at an oil depot and “explosions” at a plant producing military aircraft, its army said yesterday.

www.thedailystar.net

Ukraine strikes Russian oil depot, aviation plant

Ukraine fired a wave of drones at Russia overnight, sparking a blaze at an oil depot and "explosions" at a plant producing military aircraft, its army said yesterday.

Neither side has shown signs of deescalating since US President Donald Trump returned to office on Monday. The Republican has promised to bring a swift end to the nearly three-year war, but has not yet set out a plan for doing so.

In the western Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, Kyiv said it struck an oil depot near the town of Liski for the second time in less than a week, sparking another blaze at the facility.

"Tanks with fuel and lubricants used by the occupiers to supply Russian troops caught fire," the Ukrainian army said on Facebook.

The region's governor, Alexander Gusev, said the fire was caused by debris from a downed drone and that no-one was injured.

Ukraine also said it struck an aviation plant producing "combat aircraft" in the western Russian city of Smolensk, sparking "explosions".

The governor of the Smolensk region did not comment on the attack, saying only that falling debris from downed drones had sparked "roof fires".

In the Orenburg region bordering Kazakhstan, hundreds of kilometres from the frontline, authorities in the towns of Yasny and Komarovsky urged civilians to take cover in their nearest shelters due to the risk of a "drone attack".​

 

[Saif]

2,00,000 int’l troops needed to secure any Ukraine peace: Zelensky

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published on Wednesday...

www.newagebd.net

2,00,000 int’l troops needed to secure any Ukraine peace: Zelensky
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 23 January, 2025, 00:07

Volodymyr Zelensky. | AFP file photo.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published on Wednesday.

US president Donald Trump’s return to the White House has raised the spectre of some kind of halt in the fighting after he vowed to end the war — though he has never explained how.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a day earlier, Zelensky said any deal to end the conflict would need to be overseen by a large foreign contingent of peacekeepers.

Zelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, ‘we need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers’ to secure any peace deal.

‘From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing,’ he said.

He said any other arrangement would be akin to the monitoring mission led by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in eastern Ukraine that disintegrated when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

‘They had offices and that’s all,’ Zelensky said, underscoring the need from the Ukrainian perspective for an armed force to prevent further Russian attacks.

The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said that Ukraine must be represented at any talks with international parties to end the conflict and that only robust security guarantees can dissuade Russia from attacking again.

Ukraine’s fear that Moscow would use a truce to rebuild its military stems partially from the decade that followed peace agreements between Kremlin-backed separatists and Kyiv in 2014 which failed to halt Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

In an earlier address at Davos, Zelensky called on Europe to establish a joint defence policy and said European capitals should be prepared to increase spending, while calling into question Trump’s commitment to NATO, the US-led security bloc.

Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider imposing fresh sanctions on Russia if president Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine.​

 

[Saif]

Russian captures village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region

Russia’s army said on Tuesday its forces had captured a large village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the latest territorial gain for Moscow’s advancing troops as Kyiv warned of intense fighting in two other key frontline towns.

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Russian captures village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region
Agence France-Presse . Moscow 29 January, 2025, 00:40

Russia’s army said on Tuesday its forces had captured a large village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the latest territorial gain for Moscow’s advancing troops as Kyiv warned of intense fighting in two other key frontline towns.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had ‘liberated’ the village of Dvorichna, which had a pre-conflict population of more than 3,000.

The village — located across the strategic Oskil river — was seized by Russian forces at the start of their full-scale military offensive in 2022, before being re-taken by Kyiv months later in a swift counter-offensive.

But Ukraine’s army has been pushed back over the past year, outgunned and outmanned by Russia’s troops across the 1,000-kilometre front line.

Kyiv’s army said Tuesday its forces were repelling fierce Russian attacks in the embattled towns of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk in the eastern Donetsk region.

‘With the support of artillery, the enemy continues to storm our positions at the Kramatorsk and Toretsk sectors,’ Ukraine’s Khortytsya troop group, tasked with holding ground at key sectors of the industrial region, said in a statement on social media.

‘Heavy fighting continues in the urban areas of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk,’ it added.

Ukrainian military bloggers, with links to the defence ministry, say Russian forces are advancing on the flanks of Chasiv Yar, a strategic hilltop town that was home to some 12,000 people before the conflict.

Toretsk is one of a string of mining towns in the Donetsk region and Russian forces have been fighting for months to capture it.

‘Almost 140 artillery shells were fired at our fortifications in Chasiv Yar, and more than 80 in Toretsk,’ Khortytsya said, without specifying over what period of time.

Eight people meanwhile were wounded in overnight Russian attacks in the southern Odesa region and the eastern Kharkiv region, local officials said.

Ukraine’s air-force said that its air defence systems had downed 65 drones over 13 regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard explosions ringing out.

In Odesa, four people were wounded including a 91-year-old man and a school was damaged in the centre of the city, officials said.

An attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv meanwhile sparked a large blaze at a ‘production facility’, prosecutors said, forcing two people, including a nine-year-old girl to seek medical attention, while a drone strike on a village in the suburbs set a house on fire, wounding three people.​

 

[Saif]

Ukrainian drone barrage on Russia kills two, hits oil refinery

Strikes have escalated after Donald Trump won last year's US presidential election, with the Republican seeking a swift end to the fighting.

en.prothomalo.com

Ukrainian drone barrage on Russia kills two, hits oil refinery
AFP
Kyiv, Ukraine
Published: 29 Jan 2025, 17: 26

A Ukrainian serviceman operates a drone during a training, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine 17 August, 2023. Reuters

A Ukrainian drone attack killed a mother and her toddler in a Russian border region on Wednesday, Russian officials said, as Kyiv launched a major overnight barrage that set an oil refinery ablaze and targeted a nuclear facility.

Moscow and Kyiv have exchanged almost daily drone or missile attacks over the nearly three-year war, targeting energy and military sites in both countries.

Strikes have escalated after Donald Trump won last year's US presidential election, with the Republican seeking a swift end to the fighting.

"The most terrible thing happened as a result of a drone attack on a residential house -- a two-year-old child and his mother were killed," Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's Belgorod border region said on Telegram.

Another child and his father were also injured in the strike.

Russia's defence ministry said earlier it had downed 104 Ukrainian drones over western regions including Kursk and Bryansk, with smaller numbers intercepted over Smolensk, Tver, Belgorod and elsewhere.

Ukraine said one strike had hit an oil refinery in the town of Kstovo in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region, around 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the front lines in eastern Ukraine.

Falling debris from a drone triggered a fire at the site, Russia said earlier.

"As a result of repelling a drone attack, debris fell on the Sibur-Kstovo enterprise causing a fire to break out," Sibur, a large petrochemical firm that owns the facility, said on Telegram.

Both Sibur and the regional governor said there were no casualties and firefighters were working to extinguish the blaze.

The governor of Russia's Smolensk region, Vasily Anokhin, also said a Ukrainian drone "was shot down during an attempted attack on a nuclear power facility," adding there was no damage or casualties.

The governor did not specify which facility, but the Smolensk nuclear power plant is located near the town of Desnogorsk.

Ukraine's military said Russia had also launched an overnight drone attack of its own, resulting in air alerts in multiple Ukrainian regions.

The Ukrainian air force said it had downed 29 Russian drones over nine mainly southern and eastern regions.

In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said debris from a Russian drone had fallen in a central district of the capital.

And in the southern Black Sea region of Odesa, the governor said Russian drones had attacked port facilities in the town of Izmail.

In the southern city of Kherson, mayor Roman Mrochko said a 52-year-old man had been fatally wounded in a Russian drone attack.​

 

[Saif]

North Korean troops ‘withdrawn’ from Kursk front line: Ukraine

Ukraine believes North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russia’s army on the Kursk front line have been ‘withdrawn’ after suffering heavy losses, a military spokesman said on Friday.

www.newagebd.net

North Korean troops ‘withdrawn’ from Kursk front line: Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 01 February, 2025, 01:26

Ukraine believes North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russia’s army on the Kursk front line have been ‘withdrawn’ after suffering heavy losses, a military spokesman said on Friday.

Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say Pyongyang deployed more than 10,000 troops to support Russia’s forces fighting in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a shock cross-border offensive in August.

Kyiv captured dozens of border settlements in the operation — the first time a foreign army had crossed into Russian territory since the Second World War — in an embarrassing setback for the Kremlin.

The North Korean deployment — never officially confirmed by Moscow or Pyongyang — was supposed to reinforce Russia’s army and help them expel Ukraine’s troops.

But nearly six months on, Ukraine still holds on to swathes of Russian territory, something president Volodymyr Zelensky sees as a key bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Moscow.

‘Over the past three weeks, we have not seen or detected any activity or military clashes with the North Koreans,’ Oleksandr Kindratenko, spokesman for the Special Operations Forces, said.

‘We believe that they have been withdrawn because of the heavy losses that were inflicted,’ he added.

Ukraine previously said it had captured or killed several North Korean soldiers deployed to the Kursk region.

Zelensky has published footage of interrogations with what he said were North Korean prisoners of war captured by his army on the Kursk front.

Ukrainian officials have said that wounded North Korean troops were blowing themselves up with grenades rather than being taken alive.

Asked earlier on Friday about reports the North Korean soldiers had been withdrawn, the Kremlin declined to comment.

‘There are a lot of different arguments out there, both right and wrong,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

‘It’s not worth commenting on every time,’ he added.

Kyiv and the West had decried their deployment as a major escalation in the three-year conflict.

Ukraine says around 2,000 Russian civilians live in areas under its occupation, mostly cut off from contact with relatives on the other side of the new front line.

Discontent has been growing in the Russian border region at the failure of the local authorities to secure their return to Moscow-controlled territory or provide updates on their status.

Despite Ukraine’s hold on part of the Kursk region, Russia has been advancing elsewhere across the 1,000-kilometre front.

Moscow’s army on Friday said it had captured another village, Novovasylivka, in eastern Ukraine, where its forces are advancing on a key logistics hub and a road that is crucial for military supplies.

Novovasylivka is close to the key hub of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region, and to the internal border with Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, which so far has been spared ground combat.

Russia in 2022 said it was annexing the Donetsk region — despite not having it under full control — but has not publicly made territorial claims on Dnipropetrovsk.​

 

[Saif]

Russia fired 42 missiles, 123 drones at Ukraine

Russia fired 42 missiles and 123 drones including decoys at Ukraine overnight in a barrage that damaged buildings and left several people dead, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday.

www.newagebd.net

Russia fired 42 missiles, 123 drones at Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 01 February, 2025, 22:43

Russia fired 42 missiles and 123 drones including decoys at Ukraine overnight in a barrage that damaged buildings and left several people dead, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday.

‘On the night of February 1, 2025, the Russian invaders launched a combined attack on Ukraine with missiles of various types,’ the air force said, listing 42 missiles including cruise, ballistic and guided varieties.

The UN condemned a Russian missile attack on the city of Odesa in southern Ukraine that wounded at least seven people and damaged historic buildings.

The Black Sea port, known for its picturesque streets of 19th-century buildings, is regularly targeted by Russian strikes.

‘UNESCO condemns the missile attack on the historic centre of Odesa last night, a World Heritage site, severely damaging at least two cultural buildings placed under UNESCO Conventions’ protection,’ the UN agency said.

‘Our team is already at work to promptly support the urgent documentation of damage and identify with the Ukrainian authorities the required emergency interventions,’ it said, adding that a UNESCO mission will be deployed to Odesa.

Regional governor Oleg Kiper wrote on social media that ‘seven people are known to have been injured in the attack by Russian terrorists on the historical centre of Odesa.’

Kiper said in earlier posts that two women and a child were among the wounded.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what he called an ‘absolutely deliberate attack by Russian terrorists’, saying it was fortunate there were no deaths.

Kiper posted photos showing rescuers wheeling a woman on a stretcher outside the city’s historic Hotel Bristol. The photos show damage to the 19th-century hotel’s ornate facade and interior, including a grand staircase.

Ukraine’s emergency service posted video showing debris littering the street outside the Bristol and a woman with dust on her clothes being helped by rescuers.

It said firefighters had rescued a woman trapped in one room and extinguished a fire on the roof.

‘Among the people who were at the epicentre of the attack were Norwegian diplomatic representatives,’ Zelensky said.

‘There is a lot of damage and destruction in the UNESCO-protected area,’ Odesa’s mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said.

Odesa’s historic centre is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Its Transfiguration Cathedral — destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt in the 2000s — was badly damaged by a Russian strike in July 2023.

‘As a result of the explosions, a number of historical monuments, including the Literary, Historical and Local Lore, Archaeological Museums, Museum of Western and Eastern Art, and the Philharmonic, have had their windows smashed and their facades damaged,’ Kiper said.

Ukrainian media posted photos showing what appeared to be a large crater near the hotel, and fallen masonry, blown-out windows and debris littering the floor inside.

Russian military bloggers alleged that foreign military specialists were staying in the hotel.​

 

[Saif]

US wants Ukraine to hold elections following a ceasefire, says Trump envoy

The United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump’s top Ukraine official told Reuters. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

US wants Ukraine to hold elections following a ceasefire, says Trump envoy
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 01, 2025 21:50
Updated :
Feb 01, 2025 21:50

US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York City, US, September 27, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/Files

The United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump’s top Ukraine official told Reuters.

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, “need to be done”.

“Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so,” Kellogg said. “I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running.”

Trump and Kellogg have both said they are working on a plan to broker a deal in the first several months of the new administration to end the all-out war that erupted with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

They have offered few details about their strategy for ending the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, nor when they might unveil such a plan.

The Trump plan is still evolving and no policy decisions have been made, but Kellogg and other White House officials have discussed in recent days pushing Ukraine to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia, two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former U.S. official briefed about the election proposal said.

Trump officials are also debating whether to push for an initial ceasefire before trying to broker a more permanent deal, the two people familiar with the Trump administration discussions said. If presidential elections were to take place in Ukraine, the winner could be responsible for negotiating a longer-term pact with Moscow, the people said.

The sources declined to be named in order to discuss sensitive policy and security issues.

It is unclear how such a Trump proposal would be greeted in Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine could hold elections this year if the fighting ends and strong security guarantees are in place to deter Russia from renewing hostilities.

A senior adviser to Kyiv and a Ukrainian government source said the Trump administration has not yet formally requested Ukraine hold presidential elections by the end of the year.

SETTING A TRAP

Zelenskiy’s five-year term was supposed to end in 2024 but presidential and parliamentary polls cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022.

Washington raised the issue of elections with senior officials in Zelenskiy’s office in 2023 and 2024 during the Biden administration, two former senior US officials said.

State Department and White House officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that elections were critical to uphold international and democratic norms, the officials said.

Officials in Kyiv have pushed back on elections in conversations with Washington in recent months, telling Biden officials that hosting polls at such a volatile moment in Ukraine’s history would divide Ukrainian leaders and potentially invite Russian influence campaigns, the two former US officials said.

Asked about what the former Western official and two other people familiar with the matter told Reuters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We do not have that information.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was cited by the Interfax news agency on Jan 27 as saying that direct contacts between Moscow and the Trump administration were not yet underway. The Russian Foreign Ministry says it is still waiting for the US to approve its new pick as Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, a post currently unoccupied.

Putin has said publicly he does not think Zelenskiy is a legitimate leader in the absence of a renewed electoral mandate and that the Ukrainian president does not have the legal right to sign binding documents related to a potential peace deal.

According to the Russian leader, however, Zelenskiy could take part in negotiations in the meantime but must first revoke a 2022 decree he signed banning talks with Russia for as long as Putin is in charge.

The Ukrainian government source said Putin was using the election issue as a false excuse to disrupt future negotiations.

“(He) is setting a trap, claiming that if Ukraine doesn’t hold elections, he can later ignore any agreements,” the source said.

RUSSIA’S BIDDING?

Ukrainian legislation explicitly prohibits presidential and parliamentary elections being held under martial law.

The former Western official raised concerns about the US push for elections, saying lifting martial law could allow mobilized soldiers to leave the military, trigger an exodus of hard currency and prompt large numbers of draft-age men to “run for the border”.

It could also ignite political instability, the source said, because it would make Zelenskiy a lame duck, diluting his power and influence and fueling jockeying by potential challengers.

If Trump pressures Zelenskiy to agree to elections, Washington would be playing into Putin’s recent statements questioning the Ukrainian leader’s legitimacy, the former Western official said.

“Trump is reacting, in my view, to ... Russian feedback,” the official said. “Russia wants to see an end to Zelenskiy.”

Some former US officials say they are skeptical that a peace deal can be reached in the coming months or that elections would take place in 2025, particularly because both sides appear to be at odds on how to begin formal negotiations.

The Kremlin has said repeatedly that Putin is open to talks without preconditions.

But William Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said Putin has shown no readiness for serious negotiations.

Zelenskiy is seeking US and European security guarantees as part of any deal, including the deployment of a foreign military force on the frontlines to ensure Russia abides by any truce.​

 

[Saif]

Russian air attack kills four in Ukraine, Kyiv says

Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least four civilians and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said. The Interior Ministry said that a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in the

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Russian air attack kills four in Ukraine, Kyiv says
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 01, 2025 16:40
Updated :
Feb 01, 2025 16:40

Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Poltava, Ukraine February 1, 2025. Photo : Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Poltava region/Handout via REUTERS

Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least four civilians and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.

The Interior Ministry said that a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in the central city of Poltava, killing three people and injuring 10, including a child.

The ministry posted pictures on the Telegram messaging app showing the residential building with several top floors smashed and thick columns of smoke rising into the sky. Fire brigades and dozens of rescuers were going through the rubble.

One person was killed and four were wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast as the result of a drone attack, the Kharkiv mayor said.

Officials said that the Russian forces also damaged buildings in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian air defence was also repelling the attacks in Kyiv, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties in the capital, they said.

"Russia's daily attacks on Ukraine are a signal that the aggressor will not stop committing its crimes," Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.

"Last night and in the morning, Russia shelled Ukraine again: Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia... The terrorist targets civilian infrastructure: residential buildings, educational institutions, cars."

As the war against Russia approaches its three-year mark this month, Moscow has stepped up its air attacks on Ukraine, sending dozens of drones in almost daily attacks.

The strikes in the morning hours on Saturday followed a Russian missile attack on the southern Black Sea port of Odesa the previous evening which damaged the city's historic centre.​

 

[Saif]

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for missile strike

Ukraine and Russia traded blame for a deadly missile strike on Saturday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia’s Kursk region held by Kyiv forces.

www.thedailystar.net

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for missile strike
Four killed; 84 people receive medical assistance

Ukraine and Russia traded blame for a deadly missile strike on Saturday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia's Kursk region held by Kyiv forces.

Some of the war's fiercest battles in recent months have been taking place in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine, where Kyiv forces have held swathes of the land since staging a major cross-border incursion last August.

Ukraine's Armed Forces said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia had launched an aerial bomb from Russian territory that struck a boarding school in Sudzha, killing at least four. The boarding school housed people preparing for evacuation.

As of 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Saturday, 84 people had been rescued or received medical assistance, the statement said. Four of the injured were in a serious condition. Rescue efforts to clear rubble were proceeding.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack on Sudzha, some 12 km (7.5 miles) from the border with Ukraine, showed how Russia fights the war.

"They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there," Zelensky wrote on the X social media platform.

"This is how Russia waged war against Chechnya decades ago. They killed Syrians the same way. Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian homes the same way."

Russia's Defence Ministry said early yesterday on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had launched "a targeted missile strike on a boarding school in the city of Sudzha" from Ukrainian territory.

In a statement, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the strike a "terrorist attack" and vowed to bring Kyiv to justice.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine strikes major oil, gas facilitites in Russia

Ukraine struck energy facilities in southern Russia with dozens of drones launched yesterday, triggering fires at a major oil refinery and gas processing plant and disrupting flights from the Volga to the Caucasus Mountains, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

www.thedailystar.net

Ukraine strikes major oil, gas facilitites in Russia

UN warns Russian forces killing more captured Ukrainian troops in recent months

Ukraine struck energy facilities in southern Russia with dozens of drones launched yesterday, triggering fires at a major oil refinery and gas processing plant and disrupting flights from the Volga to the Caucasus Mountains, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

Russia's defence ministry said that its air defence units intercepted and destroyed 70 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including 25 over the Volgograd region, 27 over the Rostov region and seven over the Astrakhan region, reports Reuters.

"The air defence forces of the defence ministry repelled a massive attack by aircraft-type drones on the territory of the Volgograd region," Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said.

A pro-Russian paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine was killed in a Moscow bomb blast.

Falling drone debris sparked several fires at an oil refinery, he said, though he did not say which refinery was on fire.

Since Russia sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv has tried to fight back against its much bigger neighbour by striking deep into Russia with drones and missiles, and even killing a senior military commander in Moscow.

In Moscow, a pro-Russian paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine, Armen Sarkisyan, was killed yesterday when a bomb tore through parts of a luxury apartment block, state news agency TASS and other Russian media reported.

Meanwhile, the United Nations yesterday warned that Russian forces have been killing more captured Ukrainian soldiers over recent months, echoing growing allegations from officials in Kyiv, reports AFP.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused the other of committing war crimes, including killing prisoners of war, since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.

The United Nations monitoring mission in Ukraine said that since the end of August last year it had "recorded 79 such executions in 24 separate incidents" by Russian forces.

"These incidents did not occur in a vacuum. Public figures in the Russian Federation have explicitly called for inhumane treatment, and even execution, of captured Ukrainian military personnel," said Danielle Bell, head of the mission.

Russian forces advanced 430 square kilometres into Ukrainian territory in January and are headed towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

This marks a slight slowdown compared to previous months, after a record advance of 725 square kilometres in November and 476 square kilometres in December.​