Ukraine war: Putin launches huge naval drills amid Black Sea losses

A fire at an oil depot in Russia‘s Kursk region, caused by a Ukraine-launched drone attack, has been put out, the local acting governor said on Tuesday.

Three tanks at the oil storage depot caught fire on Sunday.

Australia’s foreign minister said today that the recent defence deal between North Korea and Russia was “destabilising” and “risky for the world,” after she visited the tense border village shared by North and South Korea.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a pact stipulating mutual military assistance if either country is attacked, deepening worries about the expanding ties between the countries.

The US and its partners have steadfastly accused North Korea of supplying much-needed conventional arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance.

Penny Wong told reporters: “I also want to say something about the security pact between North Korea and Russia. And say again, this is destabilising. This is risky for the world and again we say Russia is behaving in ways which are not conducive to peace but are escalatory.”

Wong was speaking following a visit to the southern side of the Korean border village of Panmunjom.

She also condemned North Korea’s extended run of missile tests that she said threaten regional security.

“We share great concerns about DPRK’s escalatory reactions, destabilising actions,” she said, referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

A diplomatic spat has erupted between Poland and Hungary as the leaders of the two countries criticised each other over Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Hungary’s populist prime minister Viktor Orban, who is widely considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin among all EU leaders, has faced criticism from Poland, Germany, France and other European nations.

The spat erupted when Mr Orban lashed out at Poland over the weekend.

“The Poles are pursuing the most sanctimonious and the most hypocritical policy in the whole of Europe,” he said.

“They are lecturing us morally, criticising us for our economic relations with Russia, and at the same time they are doing business with the Russians and buying oil indirectly, and running the Polish economy with it.”

It triggered a denial and angry response from Polish deputy foreign minister Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski, who said on Sunday: “We do not do business with Russia, unlike Prime Minister Orban, who is on the margins of international society – both in the European Union and Nato.”

Poland was once dependent on Russian energy sources, but has been working for years to wean itself off Russian oil and gas.

The country has said it might still have some Russian oil in reserves from past deliveries, but that it no longer imports oil from Russia.

The acting governor of Kursk region in Russia has said that the fire caused by Ukrainian drones on Sunday has finally been put out, two days after the attack caused a blaze spanning 200 square metres.

Three tanks at the oil storage depot caught fire on Sunday after the aerial attack by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine said the oil depot was being used to meet the needs of the Russian military, and contains 11 tanks with a total volume of 7,000 cubic metres, adding the attack prompted “powerful explosions and a fire … probably involving containers with oil products”.

The United States announced a new security assistance package for Ukraine on Monday that is valued at up to $200 million and includes air defenses and anti-tank weapons, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

Only six Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly the F-16 fighter jets set to be delivered to Kyiv next month by America, according to a report.

The F-16 fighter jets that Ukraine has been asking from its allies for months could not be immediately used on the frontlines as Russia is improving its air defences, the Washington Post reported, citing Ukrainian and Western officials.

The Nato member countries were involved in the programme to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s.

However, the programme was hit by delays, an official told the newspaper.

Ukraine is set to receive one squadron of F-16s — about 20 jets — this year, officials said.

More than 80 jets have been promised by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. But most of those won’t arrive in Ukraine for years.

Only six pilots are expected to finish training on F-16s “because the programme has limited spots and has been marred by delays”, it said.

Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, who is in Beijing to relaunch ties with China, has said Xi Jinping’s economic support of Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine is a source of “great friction”.

She is on her first trip to China since taking office and met premier Li Qiang on Sunday to sign a three-year plan to strengthen economic co-operation.

She said China was an “important interlocutor” in managing global tensions while Mr Xi hailed the “long-established friendly” ties with Italy.

Her comments come as China has been accused of supplying dual-use munitions to Russia that can end up being used in the Ukraine war amid its strong ties with Moscow. Russia and China have both denied the claims.

Ukrainian military intelligence agency has claimed it played a role in the deadly ambush in west African nation Mali in which fighters from Russia’s Wagner Group were killed.

Wagner on Monday said it suffered heavy losses during the attack in Mali last week, according to a post shared on a Telegram channel.

Wagner members and the Malian armed forces engaged in intense battles over a five-day period against a coalition of Tuareg separatist forces and jihadi groups, it said.

The separatist forces used heavy weapons, drones, and suicide bombers. Numerous Wagner fighters, including a commander named Sergei Shevchenko, were killed in the clashes, according to the channel.

On Monday, Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, said: “The rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals.”

He did not confirm if Ukrainian military personnel fought in the attack and said the agency “won’t discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come”.