Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow and Kyiv trade deadly strikes ahead of US-backed peace talks – UK Times

The Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia may have been fixed after recent damage but Ukraine may be holding up restarting supplies to pressure Hungary to drop opposition to Ukraine’s future membership in the European Union, Slovak prime minister Robert Fico said on Sunday.

“I perceive what is happening around oil today as political blackmail toward Hungary due to the uncompromising stance of Hungary on Ukraine’s EU membership,” Fico said after meeting US secretary of state Marco Rubio in Bratislava.

Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that Ukraine has agreed new energy and military support packages with European allies ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Kyiv is aiming to rally support among partners as it struggles to fend off Russian advances and air attacks on its energy system, while under American pressure to negotiate peace.

Zelensky wrote on X on Sunday: “In Munich, we agreed with the leaders of the Berlin Format on specific packages of energy and military aid for Ukraine by February 24.”

He had said on Friday after a meeting of the so-called Berlin Format of about a dozen European leaders in Munich that he had hoped for new support, including air-defence missiles.

“I am grateful to our partners for their readiness to help, and we count on all deliveries arriving promptly,” he added.

Russian attacks on major cities such as Kyiv have battered Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, plunging millions of residents into power outages of varying periods in freezing cold weather.

Zelensky added that Russia had launched around 1,300 attack drones, 1,200 guided aerial bombs and dozens of ballistic missiles at Ukraine over the past week alone.

On Saturday, drone strikes killed one person in Ukraine and another in Russia, Ukrainian officials said, ahead of fresh talks next week in Geneva aimed at ending the war.

An elderly woman died when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

In Russia, a civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a car in the border region of Bryansk, regional govenor Alexander Bogomaz said.

Ukrainian anti-corruption detectives have detained a former energy minister as part of a wide-ranging probe that sparked a political crisis last November, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine said on Sunday.

The so-called “Midas” case centres on an alleged $100 million kickback scheme at the state atomic agency that ensnared a number of senior officials and business elites, including a former associate of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s.

“Today NABU detectives detained a former minister of energy while crossing the state border, within the framework of the ‘Midas’ case,” NABU said in its statement.

“Priority investigative actions are ongoing, which are being carried out in accordance with the requirements of the law.”

The agency said more details would come but it did not name the individual.

Ukraine’s previous two energy ministers had resigned amid the fallout from the scandal, which also claimed the job of Zelensky’s chief of staff.

The two ministers and the chief of staff have all denied wrongdoing.

A top European Union official on Sunday rejected the notion that Europe faces “civilisational erasure,” pushing back at criticism of the continent by the Trump administration.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas addressed the Munich Security Conference a day after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a somewhat reassuring message to European allies.

He struck a less aggressive tone than Vice President JD Vance did in lecturing them at the same gathering last year but maintained a firm tone on Washington’s intent to reshape the trans-Atlantic alliance and push its policy priorities.

Ms Kallas alluded to criticism in the U.S. national security strategy released in December, which asserted that economic stagnation in Europe “is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure.”

It suggested that Europe is being enfeebled by its immigration policies, declining birth rates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” and a “loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

“Contrary to what some may say, woke, decadent Europe is not facing civilisational erasure,” Ms Kallas told the conference.

“In fact, people still want to join our club and not just fellow Europeans,” she added, saying she was told when visiting Canada last year that many people there have an interest in joining the EU.

Navalny, a fierce critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, died while serving a 19-year jail term in a penal colony around 40 miles of the Arctic Circle in charges widely thought to be politically motivated.

The political agitator has been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Before his arrest, he campaigned against official corruption, organized major anti-Kremlin protests and ran for public office.

A Ukrainian drone strike ignited fires at one of Russia’s Black Sea ports, officials said on Sunday, ahead of fresh talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year-old war.

Two people were injured in the attack on the port of Taman in the Krasnodar region, which damaged an oil storage tank, warehouse and terminals, according to regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev.

Meanwhile, falling debris from Russian drones damaged civilian and transport infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region, officials said, causing disruption to the power and water supply.

The latest attacks came ahead of another round of US-brokered talks between envoys from Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday and Wednesday in Geneva, just before the fourth anniversary of the all-out Russian invasion of its neighbour on February 22.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested there are still questions remaining over future security guarantees for his country.

He also questioned how the concept of a free trade zone – proposed by the US – would work in the Donbas region, which Russia insists Kyiv must give up for peace.

New sanctions against the Russian regime could follow from Britain and its allies blaming the Kremlin for poisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Foreign Secretary has suggested.

Asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme what the consequences of the accusation would be, Yvette Cooper said: “We continue to look at co-ordinated action, including increasing sanctions on the Russian regime.

“As you know, we have been pursuing this as part of our response to the brutal invasion of Ukraine, where we are also coming up to the fourth anniversary of that invasion as well.

“We believe that it is the partnerships that we build abroad that make us stronger at home. It is by acting alongside our European allies, alongside allies across the world, that we do maintain that pressure on the Russian regime.”

She added: “The other thing that I would say specifically about Alexei Navalny is one of the things he said was ‘tell the truth, spread the truth’, because that is the most dangerous weapon of all.

“That was his comment about the Russian regime. He is no longer able to do that, but that is why we are continuing to do that for him, and for his widow as well.”

Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said some sanctions on Russia are being “busted and circumvented”.

The Witham MP told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “We need to do much more, I think, when it comes to action against Russia.

“Sanctions are actually being busted and circumvented by some of the Russian state-sponsored individuals; we know that when it comes to the war in Ukraine.

“We’ve actually got to start cutting off their financial funds that are fuelling the war in Ukraine.

“We really need to take direct action against some of the individuals in the UK. The ambassador, again, needs to be called in.

“We need to see the Government really step up in terms of its own actions when it comes to Russia.”

Dame Priti added: “There are oil refineries around the world white-labelling Russian oil. We’ve got to target those businesses and go after them.

“Those refineries are in China, they are in Turkey and they are in India. Those businesses and refineries that are taking Russian oil, white-labelling them and re-exporting them around the world, they need to be shut down.”