Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin’s forces lose 1,000 soldiers in 24 hours on frontline, says Ukrainian military

An oil depot caught fire in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region Saturday following a Ukrainian drone attack in the early hours, local officials said, in the latest long-range strike by Kyiv’s forces on a border region.

Ukraine has in recent months stepped up aerial assaults on Russian soil, targeting refineries and oil terminals in an effort to slow down the Kremlin’s war machine.

Moscow’s army is pressing hard along the front line in eastern Ukraine, where a shortage of troops and ammunition in the third year of war has made defenders vulnerable.

Rostov regional Gov. Vasily Golubev said a drone attack had caused a blaze spanning 200 square meters (2,100 square feet), but there were no casualties. Some five hours after he reported the fire on Telegram, Golubev said the fire had been extinguished.

In addition to two drones being intercepted over the Rostov region, Russian air defense systems overnight destroyed two drones over the country’s western Kursk and Belgorod regions, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Saturday.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to travel to the UK next week to address European leaders at Blenheim Palace who are meeting to discuss Ukraine, European security and democracy, The Guardian has reported.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to arrive in Ireland later this morning when he touches down in Shannon airport, Co Clare, for a meeting with the Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris.

Poland will spend five per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence in 2025, the foreign minister told Bloomberg Television in an interview broadcast on Friday evening.

Warsaw has already ramped up defence spending to more than 4% of its economic output this year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Poland spends four (percent of GDP on defence) and we are going to spend five next year,” Radoslaw Sikorski said. “We are number one in nato including the United States, in proportion obviously, because we are no longer in eternal post-Cold War peace.”

Deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk told private broadcaster TVN24 on Thursday that Poland would increase its defence budget by about 10 per cent in 2025 to a record high.

Army chief of staff General Wieslaw Kukula told a press conference on Wednesday that Poland needed to prepare its soldiers for all-out conflict.

The White House urged India to use its long-standing relationship with Moscow to persuade the Kremlin leader to end his “brutal war” in Ukraine.

Orban branded his visit “peace mission 5.0” in a tweet, posting a picture of himself posing beside the American at Mar-a-Lago as both men grinned and made the thumbs-up sign.

“We discussed ways to make peace,” the Hungarian prime minister wrote. “The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!”

Finnish lawmakers on Friday narrowly approved a controversial bill that will allow border guards to turn away third-country migrants attempting to enter from neighboring Russia and reject their asylum applications because Helsinki says Moscow is orchestrating an influx of migrants to the border.

The government’s bill, meant to introduce temporary measures to curb migrants from entering the Nordic nation, is a response to what Finland sees as “hybrid warfare” by Russia. It believes Moscow is funneling undocumented migrants to the two countries’ border.