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Russian energy minister: drone attacks on energy facilities within Russia a ‘key threat’
Possible drone attacks against vital energy infrastructure are a serious threat to Russia’s energy security, energy minister Nikolai Shulginov said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports Shulginov did not mention Ukraine by name, but Russia says it has foiled a number of attempted Ukrainian drone attacks in recent months.
Ukraine has not publicly acknowledged launching attacks against targets inside Russia, but senior officials in Kyiv have on occasion appeared to welcome the news of successful drone attacks on Russian soil.
“The key threat now is acts of illegal interference through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles,” Shulginov said during a roundtable discussion where he addressed the security of Russia’s energy facilities.
He said he was cooperating with Russia’s defence ministry and FSB security service on the issue.
Key events
The UK and Poland will build two temporary villages in western and central Ukraine to provide housing for people who have been forced from their homes by Russia’s invasion, the UK government has said.
The villages in Lviv and Poltava will offer accommodation for more than 700 Ukrainians, a fraction of the millions either displaced in Ukraine or who have fled the country since the war began more than a year ago.
The UK has announced up to £10m in funding to support the partnership, which will deliver temporary shelters, energy supplies and assistance to those who have fled heavy fighting on the frontlines or lost their homes because of Russian shelling.
In a statement, the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said:
For the past year, Putin has continued to target civilian homes and infrastructure, with the Ukrainian people paying a heavy price. This new UK-Poland partnership will help bring light, heat and homes to those most in need.
The international community is resolute in our shared determination to support the Ukrainian people and see them prevail with a just peace on Ukrainian terms.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from the news wires of the aftermath of recent shelling in the Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region.
Summary of the day so far …
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Ukraine is aiming to exhaust and inflict heavy losses on Russian forces trying to capture the small eastern city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces said in a video posted on Tuesday. In a video showing him addressing soldiers in what appeared to be a large industrial warehouse, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was continuing to focus on the Bakhmut area after months of battle. “As of today, our main task is to wear down the overwhelming forces of the enemy and inflict heavy losses on them. It will create the necessary conditions to help liberate Ukrainian land and speed up our victory.”
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Russian forces launched 24 airstrikes, 12 missile strikes and carried out 55 attacks from rocket salvo systems in the last 24 hours, according the latest update from the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine.
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Several explosions were reported in Kyiv on Monday night, according to the mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko. Klitschko said a shop caught fire in the west but there were no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv air defence said it shot down all drones involved.
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A cultural centre and a children’s playground, as well as five private houses, were hit in the border village of Chernatske in Sumy, while a hospital was struck in the Dnipro district of Kherson.
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Possible drone attacks against vital energy infrastructure are a serious threat to Russia’s energy security, energy minister Nikolai Shulginov said on Tuesday. Shulginov did not mention Ukraine by name, but Russia says it has foiled a number of attempted Ukrainian drone attacks in recent months.
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Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian defence minister, posted a video thanking the UK for the first British Challenger 2 main battle tanks to arrive in Ukraine. “These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions,” he wrote on Twitter. The German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, confirmed the arrival of 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks in Ukraine on Monday.
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Belarus’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it had been forced to house Russian nuclear weapons on its territory by the aggressive actions of Nato countries that were threatening Belarus’s own security.
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Romania and Poland are in talks with the European Commission over export tracing mechanisms for Ukrainian grain to ensure local farmers are not hurt by a flood of cheap Ukrainian imports, the Polish and Romanian prime ministers said on Tuesday.
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Alexander Novak, the Russian deputy prime minister, said on Tuesday that Russia needed to focus on boosting energy exports to so-called “friendly” countries, as he said Russian oil supplies to India jumped 22-fold last year.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be here shortly to take you through the next few hours of our live coverage.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday it would keep demanding an international investigation into explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea last year, after failing to win United Nations backing for an investigation.
Reuters reports that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in his regular daily media briefing that everyone should be interested in an impartial investigation in order to find the culprits.
On Monday, Russia failed to get the UN security council to ask for an independent inquiry into explosions in September that ruptured the Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia and Germany and spewed gas into the Baltic Sea.
Romania and Poland are in talks with the European Commission over export tracing mechanisms for Ukrainian grain to ensure local farmers are not hurt by a flood of cheap imports, the Polish and Romanian prime ministers said on Tuesday.
Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, has had its Black Sea ports blocked since Russia invaded more than a year ago and has been forced to find alternative shipping routes through EU states Poland and Romania.
But Reuters reports that logistical bottlenecks mean that large quantities of Ukrainian grain, which is cheaper than that produced in the European Union, has ended up in central European states, hurting prices and sales of local farmers.
Romanian and Polish prime ministers Nicolae Ciucă and Mateusz Morawiecki told a business conference in Bucharest their governments were working on solutions with the EU.
Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian defence minister, gave the UK the thumbs up as he took a ride in what he said was the first British Challenger 2 main battle tank to arrive in Ukraine.
The UK said in January it would send 14 of the tanks to Ukraine, which is preparing for a possible counteroffensive against Russian forces that invaded 13 months ago.
Reuters reports Reznikov wrote on Twitter that the tanks had “recently arrived in our country” and posted a video that showed him sitting in one of a long line of tanks in an open field, all of them flying Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag.
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“It was a pleasure to take the first Ukrainian Challenger 2 MBT [main battle tank] for a spin,” Reznikov wrote. “These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions.”
It was a pleasure to take the first Ukrainian Challenger 2 MBT for a spin.
Such tanks, supplied by the United Kingdom, have recently arrived in our country.
These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions.
Thank you, @RishiSunak, @BWallaceMP, and the 🇬🇧 people. pic.twitter.com/zoCRmKdBnN— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) March 28, 2023
In the video, he gave the thumbs up sign and thanked British defence secretary Ben Wallace for the tanks.
“Marvellous, Ben,” he said in English. “It’s … very good stuff. Thank you very much from Ukraine to the United Kingdom.”
Russian energy minister: drone attacks on energy facilities within Russia a ‘key threat’
Possible drone attacks against vital energy infrastructure are a serious threat to Russia’s energy security, energy minister Nikolai Shulginov said on Tuesday.
Reuters reports Shulginov did not mention Ukraine by name, but Russia says it has foiled a number of attempted Ukrainian drone attacks in recent months.
Ukraine has not publicly acknowledged launching attacks against targets inside Russia, but senior officials in Kyiv have on occasion appeared to welcome the news of successful drone attacks on Russian soil.
“The key threat now is acts of illegal interference through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles,” Shulginov said during a roundtable discussion where he addressed the security of Russia’s energy facilities.
He said he was cooperating with Russia’s defence ministry and FSB security service on the issue.
Commander: main Ukrainian task in Bakhmut is ‘wear down overwhelming forces of enemy’
Ukraine is aiming to exhaust and inflict heavy losses on Russian forces trying to capture the small eastern city of Bakhmut, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces said in a video posted on Tuesday.
In a video showing him addressing soldiers in what appeared to be a large industrial warehouse, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was continuing to focus on the Bakhmut area after months of battle.
Moscow sees capturing Bakhmut as vital in its efforts to establish complete control over the Donbas industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
“They do not stop trying to surround and capture the city,” Reuters report Syrskyi said in the video posted on the Telegram messaging app.
“As of today, our main task is to wear down the overwhelming forces of the enemy and inflict heavy losses on them. It will create the necessary conditions to help liberate Ukrainian land and speed up our victory.”
Bakhmut had a prewar population of about 70,000 people but the city has been virtually destroyed in about eight months of intense fighting, often at close quarters.
Syrskyi has been meeting troops near the frontline as Ukraine prepares for a possible counteroffensive after 13 months of war. He said on Monday the defence of Bakhmut was a military necessity.
Syrskyi said his visits to meet troops near the frontline were needed for him and his commanders to agree on plans that would have “real results on the battlefield but not on the maps”.
Alexander Novak, the Russian deputy prime minister, said on Tuesday that Russia needed to focus on boosting energy exports to so-called “friendly” countries, as he said Russian oil supplies to India jumped 22-fold last year.
Reuters reports Novak said energy revenues accounted for 42% of Russia’s federal budget in 2022 and said the country’s energy industry was sustainable, despite the challenges faced by western sanctions.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports on its official Telegram channel that a hospital in Kherson has been struck overnight. Citing officials from the local administration, it writes:
Around 4 o’clock in the morning, Russian troops shelled a hospital in the Dnipro district of Kherson. There were at least five explosions. One of the shells hit the fifth floor of the building. The blast wave knocked out almost all the windows in the main building on one side.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Belarus foreign ministry: country forced to host nuclear missiles due to Nato actions
Belarus’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that it had been forced to house Russian nuclear weapons on its territory by the aggressive actions of Nato countries that were threatening Belarus’s own security, Reuters reports, citing Russian news agency Tass.
Minsk also said the plans – announced over the weekend by Vladimir Putin – to station Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, would not contravene international non-proliferation agreements as Belarus would not have control over the weapons.
Tass quotes the ministry saying:
Military cooperation between Belarus and Russia is carried out in strict accordance with international law. The training of Belarusian pilots capable of flying aircraft with specific ammunition, the modernisation of such aircraft, as well as the deployment of nuclear warheads on the territory of Belarus without transferring control over them to Minsk, as well as access to appropriate technology, do not in any way contradict the provisions of articles I and II of the non-proliferation treaty.
The ministry said it was forced to respond because “unilateral coercive measures in politics and the economy are accompanied by the buildup of military potential in the territory of neighboring countries – Nato members in close proximity to our borders. Considering these circumstances and the legitimate concerns and risks in the field of national security arising from them, Belarus is taking forced response actions to strengthen its own security and defence capability.”
It also noted that Belarus regards the actions of the west as “direct and gross interference in the internal affairs of an independent state, aimed at changing the geopolitical course and changing the internal political system of Belarus”.
State-owned Russian news agency Tass is reporting this morning some words from Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, about the situation in Bakhmut. Tass quotes Pushilin on the Soloviev Live TV channel on Tuesday saying:
Now [Wagner mercenary group troops] have created unbearable conditions for the enemy to even carefully try to bring up combat kits, bring up reserves, take out even the wounded – all this is extremely difficult for the enemy, because all the roads are already being shot through by [Wagner mercenary troops].
As for the city itself, here it was important to clean up the industrial zone at the Azom plant itself. Pretty much we can already talk about this, the guys there are finishing off the militants, but those are single groups.
The claims have not been independently verified. Russian state media has previously reported that Wagner forces were in full control of the Azom metallurgical plant in the north of the city.
