Russia Ukraine war latest: Kyiv hits major oil refinery in huge drone attack as North Korea ‘prepares more troops’

The Russian Embassy in London has said that Russia posed no threat to undersea cables in Britain and other Nato countries after defence secretary John Healey accused Moscow of “malign activity” at sea.

Mr Healey said on Wednesday it had monitored a Russian spy ship in the English Channel for two days and would strengthen its response to secret operations by Russian ships in an effort to protect undersea cables.

The same ship had been caught “loitering” over Britain’s critical undersea infrastructure weeks before, Mr Healey said.

Russia said the allegations were without foundation.

“Claims by Britain’s Ministry of Defence regarding alleged Russian threats against underwater infrastructure of the UK and its NATO allies are completely groundless,” Russian Embassy, UK, said on X on Friday.

“Russia has never posed such threats.”

Ukraine says it has struck a Russian oil refinery and a microchip factory in a huge drone attack that caused fires at the refinery’s production facilities and an oil pumping station.

Other drones targeted numerous regions, including 20 in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow, the Russian defence ministry said. Russian war blogger channels on the Telegram messaging app posted videos of what they described as large blazes in the city. They said an oil storage depot and a power station had been hit.

The Russian military has lost at least 20,027 units of equipment since February 2022, an analysis by the Oryx project suggested. Oryx is a Dutch open-source intelligence defence analysis platform and warfare research group.

The report adds that 15,051 units were destroyed and 852 were damaged, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Russian troops abandoned 1,113 units and more than 3,000 were captured by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine lost 7,609 units of military equipment since the beginning of the invasion, the report said.

The report noted that actual losses are likely to be “significantly higher than recorded here”, since Oryx’s reports are based only on photo and video evidence.

Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” pact in Pyongyang on 19 June, 2024, including a mutual defence clause in case of aggression against either country.

Kim expressed “unconditional support” for “all of Russia’s policies”, including “a full support and firm alliance” for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Putin has said Russia would help North Korea build satellites.

The US and South Korea say North Korea has shipped ballistic missiles, anti-tank rockets and millions of rounds of ammunition for Russia to use in the war. Moscow and Pyongyang have denied weapons transfers.

Ukraine, South Korea and the US say Kim has sent more than 11,000 troops to fight for Russia in its western Kursk region, part of which has been held by Ukraine since August. Ukraine says many North Korean soldiers have been killed and wounded. Moscow has never confirmed or denied their presence.

Vladimir Putin has said that he is ready to meet with Donald Trump and discuss the war in Ukraine.

“We believe the current president’s statements about his readiness to work together. We are always open to this and ready for negotiations,” the Russian president said in an interview with state television.

“It would be better for us to meet, based on the realities of today, to talk calmly.”

“If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the US, and various other participating countries.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday said he agreed with US president Donald Trump’s claim that he would have stopped the war if he was in office in 2022.

“We always had a business-like, pragmatic but also trusting relationship with the current U.S. president,” Putin said in an interview with Russian state television, reported The Associated Press.

“I couldn’t disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn’t stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided.”

Trump made the statement in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that aired Thursday on Hannity’s program, claiming Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky shouldn’t have been “fighting a much bigger entity” because “we could have made a deal”.

“I could have made that deal so easily. And Zelensky decided: ‘I want to fight,’” he said.

The president’s contention that Zelensky decided to initiate hostilities against Russia is absolutely false.

Trump has been critical of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and has said he could end the war in 24 hours if elected – although advisers concede it will likely take months if not longer.

He has suggested Ukraine may have to yield some of its territory if a peace deal is to be struck.

Trump and his pick for national security adviser, US Representative Michael Waltz, have criticized the Biden administration’s decision in November to allow Ukraine to use US-provided missiles to strike within Russian territory.

Trump has also said that under his presidency the US would fundamentally rethink Nato’s purpose and Nato’s mission.

While there is no fully fleshed-out Trump peace plan, most of his key aides favor taking NATO membership off the table for Ukraine as part of any peace agreement, at least for the foreseeable future. They also broadly support freezing the battle lines at their prevailing location.

The Russian economy has shown resilience during the three years of war in Ukraine and Western sanctions. However, as the war approaches its fourth year, the economy faces major challenges with key economic policymakers at odds on how to address them.

Below are the key challenges for the Russian economy in 2025:

• Russian annual inflation reached 9.5% in 2024, driven by high military and national security spending, which is set to account for 41% of total state budget spending in 2025, state subsidies on loans, and spiralling wage growth amid labour shortages.
• Inflation tops the list of economic woes in public opinion polls, with prices for staple foods such as butter, eggs, and vegetables showing double-digit growth last year.

• The government projects that economic growth rates will slow to 2.5% in 2025 from around 4% in 2024 as a result of measures to cool down the overheated economy, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects growth at 1.4% this year.
• The pro-government economic think tank TsMAKP estimated that many industrial sectors outside defence have been stagnating since 2023, raising prospects of stagflation, a combination of high inflation and economic stagnation.

• Russia’s budget deficit reached 1.7% of GDP in 2024, while the country’s National Wealth Fund, the main source of financing the deficit, has been depleted by two-thirds during three years of war.
• The government raised taxes to bring the deficit down to 0.5% of GDP in 2025, but its revenues could also fall due to the latest U.S. energy sanctions, which targeted Russia’s oil and gas sector.