Ukraine-Russia warfare newest: Kyiv says subsequent spherical of peace talks may very well be held this week as assaults proceed

Ukraine struck a key Russian oil facility with drones on Monday, Kyiv’s military intelligence said.

Officials said the station was a key facility for the Druzhba oil pipeline which supplies Russian oil to eastern Europe, according to the SBU.

Ukrainian drones have struck an oil pumping station in Russia’s Tatarstan region, more than 750 miles from the border, an official from Ukraine’s security service said.

The station is an important facility for the Druzhba oil pipeline, which supplies Russian oil to eastern Europe, the official said, adding that the attack caused a fire.

Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine is ready to continue helping with the release of Belarusian political prisoners, having already received prisoners released in a US-brokered exchange on its territory.

“We are ready to continue this and will provide Belarusian prisoners any assistance that is within our power. But freeing people from prisons is very difficult,” he wrote on social media.

Another round of peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine could come as soon as this week, Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said today.

“I think at the end of the week, this week,” Kyrylo Budanov told Novyny.Live when asked about the next round of talks.

Moscow is ready to offer Serbia a nuclear power plant project based on Russian technology, as part of an international consortium, the head of the nuclear state corporation Rosatom was quoted as saying by the RIA state news agency on Monday.

Standing in the pre-dawn freeze on a terrace overlooking Kharkiv’s Freedom Square four years ago, it took less than a minute before I was reporting on those rockets when they exploded on impact.

The skyline bulged orange, then came the concussive thump, then the cracks of the rockets exploding. They’d been fired from Russia into Ukraine’s second biggest city.

Our world affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:

A “massive” Ukrainian missile attack inflicted serious damage on energy infrastructure and disrupted supplies of power, heat and water in Russia’s Belgorod region, officials said.

“There has been, as a result, serious damage to energy infrastructure,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. “In residences, there are interruptions in supplies of electricity, water and heat.”

Gladkov described the attack as “massive”, affecting both the city of Belgorod, 25 miles from the border, and the surrounding area.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launched Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

This photo gallery looks back at four years of war:

Ukraine recovered control of 400 sq kilometres of territory, including eight settlements, in February, the head of the military announced this morning.

Zelensky said only on 20 February that Ukraine’s Defense Forces had liberated 300 sq km in the south during a counteroffensive.

Speaking in Berlin, Merz adds that Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s attacks was more effective than it was often made out to be, citing unexpected territorial gains this month.

“February saw astonishing territorial gains by the Ukrainian defence forces, and the Russian economy is creaking under the weight of sanctions and of warfare – more than we may sometimes surmise from our own media coverage here,” he said.