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Two Killed in Overnight Drone Attacks on Russian Oil Refinery – Two people have been killed after Ukraine struck an oil refinery in southern Russia in an overnight drone attack.
The Afipsky refinery, located in Russia’s Krasnodar region, was targeted in the latest assault by Kyiv on Russia’s oil and gas infrastructure.
Putin in Meeting Creative Commons Photo
Kremlin Speech by Putin. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
American Special Forces are conducting joint operations with local troops against drug cartels, and more U.S. military assets are incoming, Ecuadorian officials said last week. The announcements come nearly six months after the U.S. and Ecuador carried out their first joint strike against a group inside the country, which officials labeled as drug traffickers.
A local official said U.S. Green Berets have been operating in the Esmeraldas province, carrying out joint operations with Ecuadorian forces, according to reports from Agence France-Press and UPI.
The Trump Administration appears to be pursuing a different strategy in its quest to find an exit from the Iran conflict: Economic pressure, in what the president and Treasury Secretary are calling “Economic D-Day.”
Secretary Scott Bessent announced how the new sanctions would work on Monday afternoon. According to the New York Times, and as previously teased by President Donald Trump and Bessent, the idea is economic sanctions, including on countries that help Iran or do business with it in any way.
The UK and Ukraine have signed a major agreement to collaborate on AI, with the focus on developing enhanced military capabilities and new technology solutions.
Sikorsky, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, has named Česká letecká servisní (ČLS) as its first authorised distribution centre for Black Hawk helicopter parts in the European Union.
Ukraine began its war on Russia’s oil industry in the early days of the war.
But its campaign of drone strikes on refineries, storage tanks, oil sea transport terminals and other infrastructure did not widen into a systemic assault on this vital sector of Russia’s economy until late 2024 and on into 2025.
Putin New Year’s Message. Image Credit: Russian Government.
As an essay from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) described last month, Ukraine struck “Russia’s Central Nervous System.
The UK has committed to handing over blueprints for the UK-France-designed Storm Shadow/Système de Croisière Autonome à Longue Portée – Emploi Général (SCALP EG) cruise missiles to Ukraine.
This will allow Kyiv to manufacture its own missiles, which it has been launching not only from the Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters donated by France, but also from the Ukrainian Air Force’s (PSU) pre-war fleet of Soviet-era Sukhoi Su-24 fighter-bombers.
Su-35. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Su-35 Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
As Ukraine celebrates its 35th year since being restored to independent status, leaders and representatives of the Coalition of the Willing met in person and via video conference in the capital, Kyiv.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz chaired the meeting alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
T-72 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
T-72 Like Those Fighting in Ukraine.
The gathering also took place one day after Ukraine had commemorated the 23 August National Flag Day.
Everett Bartlett will never forget the huge cloud of smoke.
Bartlett was only 10 years old on April 21, 1958, when he saw the disturbing image off in the distance, a few miles from his school in Henderson, Nevada. The boy was outside at the time and didn’t know what to make of the smoke. He just knew it was bad.
“It looked like a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb,” Bartlett recalled to KSNV, Las Vegas’ NBC television affiliate, in 2025.
Ukraine has carried out some devastating attacks on Russian infrastructure in recent weeks, using drones and other weapons to strike at Russia’s energy facilities, as well as at warehouses owned by Wildberries, the “Amazon of Russia,” and other locations. Many of those strikes have been deadly, including the deaths of civilians.
Does this represent a change in Ukraine’s posture when it comes to civilian casualties? Politico’s European arm looked at that question this week.