Ukraine drones hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region. Ukraine has lost more than 45,000 soldiers killed and almost 390,000 wounded, Zelenskyi says. The U.S. foreign aid freeze has affected efforts to prosecute Russia’s war crimes, rebuild Ukraine’s energy network, a U.S. congressman says.
Ukraine drones hit oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region
An overnight Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region and a Buk air defense system in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Wednesday.
The plant belongs to the Albashneft company and is positioned as a “mini refinery.” It supplies gasoline and diesel to the Russian army, the General Staff said. The operation was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service in cooperation with other branches of the military.
The strike sparked a fire at the facility. The results of the attack are being clarified, the message reads.
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces hit and damaged a Russian Buk air defense system stationed in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region overnight on Wednesday, the General Staff added.
Ukraine has lost more than 45,000 soldiers killed, almost 390,000 wounded, Zelenskyi says
Ukraine had lost 45,100 soldiers on the battlefield since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in an interview with UK journalist Piers Morgan published on YouTube on Tuesday.
“We have around 390,000 cases of injury. Let me clarify: the number of cases of injury exceeds that of the wounded, because there are people who were injured twice and returned to the battlefield [after the injury]. So the number of cases of injury is 390,000, but the actual number of wounded is slightly lower,” Zelenskyi explained.
He added that thousands of Ukrainian troops had gone missing. How many of them are held captive by Russia is unknown.
Zelenskyi put the number of Russian soldiers killed at about 350,000. A further 50,000-70,000 went missing.
“They also have around 600,000-700,000 wounded. Their death to injury ratio is 1:2 as their combat medicine is weaker than ours and they do not pick their wounded up — once they are lost on the battlefield, they stay there. These are approximate numbers, but I believe [the estimate] is very close to reality,” Zelenskyi said.
U.S. foreign aid freeze has affected efforts to prosecute Russia’s war crimes, rebuild Ukraine’s energy network, U.S. congressman says
The Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid stopped programs supporting the prosecution of Russian war crimes and the restoration of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure after Russia’s attacks, Ukraine-born Democratic congressman Eugene Vindman said Tuesday, according to Ukrinform.
Among the programs that were frozen are the ones [assisting Ukraine’s institutions as they work] to prosecute Russia’s war crimes, Vindman said at an event in Washington, adding that the cuts would also affect support for international experts involved in the process.
A program to rebuild the Ukrainian energy infrastructure damaged by constant Russian attacks is also among the ones that were halted, he added.
Vindman called on the U.S. administration to rescind the restrictions.
On January 20, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily suspending all U.S. foreign assistance programs for 90 days “for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
USAID has suspended all projects in Ukraine without exceptions amid a broad U.S. foreign aid freeze, Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne said on January 27, citing the organization’s press service.
The Trump administration also placed several dozen senior officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development on administrative leave, according to media reports. USAID funds projects in education, healthcare, energy, and social sectors worldwide, including in Ukraine.