Ukrainian drones have attacked a large gas processing plant in the south RussiaThis sparked a fire and forced the country to halt its gas supplies from Kazakhstan, Russian and Kazakh authorities said on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump Meanwhile, suggested that Kiev may have to give up territory in return for an end to Moscow’s more than three-and-a-half-year invasion, the latest apparent reversal in peace policy.
The Orenburg plant of the state gas giant Gazprom is located in the region of the same name near the Kazakh border and is part of a production and processing complex that, with an annual capacity of 45 billion cubic meters, is one of the largest plants of its kind in the world. It processes gas condensate from Kazakhstan’s Karachaganak field as well as Orenburg’s own oil and gas fields.
According to regional governor Yevgeny Solntsev, the drone strikes set fire to a workshop at the plant and damaged part of it. Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said on Sunday, citing a statement from Gazprom, that the plant was temporarily unable to process gas from Kazakhstan “due to an emergency situation following a drone attack.”
Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement on Sunday that a “major fire” had broken out at the Orenburg plant and one of its gas processing and purification facilities had been damaged.
Kiev has stepped up attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months, claiming they are funding and directly fueling Moscow’s war effort.
Trump says Ukraine may have to give up land for peace
Trump appeared to be leaning again toward pushing Ukraine to give up reclaiming land lost to Russia in return for an end to Moscow’s aggression.
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Asked in an interview with Fox News on Thursday whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would be willing to end the war “without taking significant property away from Ukraine,” Trump replied: “Well, he will take some.”
“They fought and he has a lot of property. He won certain property,” Trump said. “We are the only nation that goes in, wins a war, and then leaves.”
The interview aired Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” but was conducted before Trump spoke with Putin and Zelensky last week.
The comments amounted to another change in position by the U.S. leader on the war. In recent weeks, Trump had shown increasing impatience with Putin and expressed greater openness to helping Ukraine win the war.
In Thursday’s interview, he was noncommittal about Ukraine’s requested delivery of Tomahawk missiles, saying, “I’m looking at it,” but also expressed concern about the depletion of U.S. weapons stocks.
“We need them for ourselves too,” Trump said. “We can’t give all of our weapons to Ukraine. We just can’t.”
Contrary to Kiev’s hopes, Trump did not commit to supplying the country with tomahawks after the White House meeting on Friday. The missiles would be the longest-range weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal and would allow it to precisely attack targets deep inside Russia, including Moscow.
The tomahawk shipments could be leverage to push the Kremlin into negotiations, analysts say, after Trump expressed frustration with Putin’s refusal to budge on key aspects of a possible peace deal.
The Russians modified bombs for deeper attacks
Meanwhile, Ukrainian prosecutors allege that Moscow is modifying its deadly aerial bombs to target civilians deeper in Ukraine. Local authorities in Kharkiv said Russia had attacked a residential neighborhood for the first time with a new rocket-propelled aerial bomb.
The Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Russia used the UMPB-5R weapon, which can have a range of up to 130 kilometers, in an attack on the city of Lozava on Saturday afternoon. The city is 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of Kharkiv, a considerable distance for the weapon to be used.
Russia continued to attack other parts of Ukraine closer to the front line. At least eleven people were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region after Russian drones hit the Shakhtarske region. At least 14 five-story buildings and one shop were damaged, acting regional governor Vladyslaw Haiwanenko said.
A Russian attack also hit a coal mine in the Dnipropetrovk region. About 192 miners were brought to the surface unharmed, the company that operates the mine said.
Ukraine’s General Staff also claimed a separate drone strike hit Russia’s Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery in the Samara region near Orenburg, causing a fire and damaging key refinery units.
The Novokuybyshevsk plant, operated by Russian gas giant Rosneft, has an annual capacity of 4.9 million tonnes and produces over 20 types of oil products. Russian authorities did not immediately acknowledge the Ukrainian claim or discuss any damages.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement early Sunday that its air defense forces shot down 45 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 12 over the Samara region, one over the Orenburg region and 11 over the Saratov region adjacent to Samara.
The Ukrainian Air Force, in turn, reported on Sunday that Russia had fired 62 drones into Ukrainian territory during the night. It said 40 of them were shot down or veered off course due to electronic malfunctions.
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