A fire that halted fuel production over the weekend at Novatek’s plant in the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga was linked by Ukrainian media to Kyiv’s special forces. 

North Korea said Russian President Vladimir Putin could visit soon as the two countries deepen ties and seek to establish “a new multipolarised international order”.

Russia says 25 dead in Donetsk attack

At least 25 people were killed on Sunday in shelling near the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, in what a local official said was an attack by Ukrainian forces.

Russia requested that the United Nations Security Council discuss the attack on Monday when Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be on hand in New York. 

Artillery shells were fired at a busy market and shopping area in Tekstilshchik, an area on the outskirts of the city, Denis Pushilin, the occupied region’s Kremlin-installed leader, said on Telegram, a social media platform.

Ukraine hasn’t commented and the claims couldn’t be independently verified. Images on social media footage showed bodies strewn on snowy streets. 

An additional 20 people were injured, including children, Pushilin said, with emergency services at the scene. 

“The Russian side strongly condemns this treacherous attack on civilians,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that it appeared Ukraine used multiple launch rocket systems. 

The reported attack comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is set to enter its third year, with no current path to ending the conflict. 

Donetsk is one of the four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia in 2022, along with Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia doesn’t have full control of any of the regions. 

Fire tied to Ukraine drones shuts Novatek Baltic Sea fuel plant

A fire that halted fuel production over the weekend at Novatek’s plant in the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga was linked by Ukrainian media to Kyiv’s special forces. 

The websites of Ukraine’s Suspilne TV and Ukrainska Pravda cited sources in the nation’s Security Service as saying the attack was a special operation of Ukrainian security forces.

Separately, the BBC, citing an official source in Kyiv it didn’t identify, said special forces struck the plant with drones. 

The blaze was the result of “external influence”, Novatek said on Sunday, citing preliminary information and without elaborating. 

Fontanka, a local media outlet, said drones struck the facility, in the Leningrad region, early on Sunday morning. 

The incident comes days after Moscow said a Ukrainian drone was downed near St Petersburg in the Leningrad region, about 1,000km from the border with Ukraine. That was the first known time that a UAV had been spotted in the territory since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost 23 months ago. 

The Ust-Luga port is one of the country’s two main Baltic Sea energy export outlets, located about 130km southwest of St Petersburg, the hometown of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and not far from the Estonian border. 

According to Novatek, the Ust-Luga gas condensate-processing plant has ceased all technological operations. There were no casualties.  

Ukrainian drones have regularly attacked areas in central Russia, including the Moscow region, and areas bordering Ukraine. On Saturday, Russia’s Defence Ministry reported that it had intercepted drones in the Smolensk, Tula and Orel regions.  

North Korea says Putin pledges to visit soon as ties deepen

North Korea said Putin could visit soon as the two countries deepen ties and seek to establish “a new multipolarised international order”.

Putin told visiting Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui that he was grateful for the invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and that he’d make the trip to Pyongyang at an early date, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Sunday. Choe was in Russia from 15 to 17 January to beef up “strategic and tactical cooperation” between the two nations, according to the report.

Choe’s diplomacy follows a visit by Kim to Russian military bases in September, where he inspected weapons including hypersonic missiles and supersonic bombers.

Moscow is keen to cement relations with allies hostile to the US as it wages its war in Ukraine. Both Pyongyang and the Kremlin have denied claims by the US and South Korea that North Korea was providing missiles for use in Russia’s bombardment of its southern neighbour. 

Read more: Putin meets North Korea’s top envoy as arms flow builds

Russia thanked North Korea “for extending full support and solidarity to the stand of the Russian government and people on the special military operation in Ukraine”, KCNA said, without elaborating. DM