Ukraine strikes oil refineries in Saratov and Tuapse. UK sends Ukraine more Storm Shadow missiles to strike in Russia, Bloomberg News said. Trump is not considering sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for now.
Ukraine strikes oil refineries in Saratov, Tuapse
The Ukrainian military carried out a strike on Russia’s Saratov oil refinery overnight on Monday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement on social media.
The strike caused a fire in the area of ELOU AVT-6 refining units, it said.
The refinery in Saratov is one of Russia’s oldest oil processing plants. It has the capacity to process 4.8 million tons of crude per year, according to the data from 2023. The facility also supplies the Russian military, the message reads.
Ukraine’s defense forces also hit parts of Russian supply lines in the occupied region of Luhansk, the Ukrainian General Staff said. A materiel warehouse in Rozkishne and a mobile fuel and lubricants depot in Dovzhansk were struck.
“[Ukraine’s] defense forces are consistently striking critical elements of the military industrial base of [Russia’s] terrorist state in order to strip it of possibilities to continue aggression,” the General Staff said.
Ukraine struck an oil terminal of the Tuapse refinery on November 1. The attack damaged an oil loading facility in Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse. The terminal is one of Russia’s largest, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
UK sends Ukraine more Storm Shadow missiles to strike in Russia, Bloomberg News says
The UK government recently resupplied Ukraine with more Storm Shadow cruise missiles to enable Kyiv to continue its campaign of long-range strikes inside Russia, people familiar with the matter said, according to Bloomberg News. The paragraphs below are quoted from the article.
The delivery of an unspecified number of missiles was made to ensure Ukraine is stocked ahead of the winter months, during which Britain is concerned the Kremlin will step up attacks on Ukrainian civilians, according to the people, who spoke anonymously about matters that haven’t been made public.
Storm Shadows are precision-guided, air-launched missiles with a range of more than 250 kilometers (155 miles).
The UK government hasn’t said how many Storm Shadow missiles it has given Ukraine during the war, and doesn’t regularly announce transfers.
The Trump administration has lifted a key restriction on Ukraine’s use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies, enabling Kyiv to step up attacks on targets inside Russia and increase pressure on the Kremlin, U.S. officials said in late October, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Trump not considering sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for now
U.S. President Donald Trump said he’s “not really” considering providing Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles. Asked about it by reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump responded: “No, not really.”
“Could happen,” he added. “I could change, but at this moment, I’m not,” he said.
When asked what would be the “final straw” for the U.S. regarding Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Trump said: “There is no final straw. Sometimes you have to let it fight out, and they are fighting it out. And it’s been a tough war for Putin. He’s lost a lot of soldiers, maybe a million. That’s a lot of soldiers. And it’s been tough for Ukraine. It’s been tough with both. Sometimes you have to let it, you know, just get fought out.”
“I’ve settled eight wars. I thought that that war would be easier than some of the ones we settled,” he added.
Ukraine has long argued that Tomahawk missiles would significantly expand its strike capabilities, compelling Russia to take Trump’s calls for negotiations to end war more seriously.
Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi in a meeting on October 17 that he doesn’t intend to provide long-range Tomahawk missiles, at least for now, two sources briefed on the meeting told Axios.
“It’s good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no,’ but for today, [he] didn’t say ‘yes,’” Zelenskyi told NBC News after the meeting, speaking of the delivery of Tomahawk missiles. Zelenskyi said he and Trump had talked about long-range missiles, but decided not to make statements on the issue “because the United States does not want an escalation,” according to BBC News.
“The problem with the Tomahawk is — a lot of people don’t know — It’ll take a minimum of six months, usually a year, to learn how to use,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on October 22.