Twenty-seven people were killed and 25 were injured during the shelling by Ukrainian troops of the city of Donetsk in the east of the country, the Moscow-appointed head of the “annexed” Donetsk region, Denys Pushylin, said on Sunday. In his nightly video address, President Zelenskyy did not talk about the attack, but noted that Russia had bombed more than 100 cities, towns and villages in nine regions of Ukraine during the day, and the shelling in Donetsk region was “particularly strong.” “. The command of the Tavria Armed Forces (southern district) in a post on Facebook stated that the military under its command are not responsible. “Donetsk is Ukraine! Russia will have to answer for the lives of Ukrainians,” he added.

All information about the war in Ukraine – day 698 – LIVE on HotNews.ro:

07:43 Russia has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become China’s top crude oil supplier in 2023 as the world’s biggest oil importer ignores Western sanctions and buys large volumes of oil at a discount.

Last year, Russia shipped a record 107.02 million tonnes of crude oil to China, equivalent to 2.14 million barrels per day (bpd), according to Chinese customs data, far more than other major oil exporters such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Russia suspended the work of a huge oil terminal in the Baltic Sea

07:41 Minister of Foreign Affairs Luminica Odobescu will take part on Monday in the meeting of foreign ministers of the EU member states – the Council of Foreign Affairs (CAE), which will be held in Brussels, MAE reports. On the agenda of the meeting are Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.

The discussion of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine takes place in the framework of preparations for the extraordinary meeting of the European Council on February 1, 2024. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba will speak via video conference to present the situation on the ground. At the meeting in the EU-27 format, the ministers of foreign affairs of the European countries will discuss the EU’s long-term support for Ukraine.

07:36 Russian energy company Novatek said it had to suspend some operations at a huge Baltic Sea fuel export terminal due to a fire caused by what Ukrainian media said was a drone attack.

The giant Ust-Luga complex, located in the Gulf of Finland, approximately 170 km west of St. Petersburg, is used to transport oil and gas products to international markets.

It is unclear how long the outage will last, how many tankers will have to stay out of port and what effect it will have on international energy markets.

Critical infrastructure facilities in the region adjacent to Leningrad have been put on high alert, and security units and law enforcement agencies have been ordered to destroy all detected drones, the regional administration reported in Telegram. (Reuters)

A brief summary of recent events:

• Russia called Sunday’s blast at a market on the outskirts of Donetsk a “barbaric terrorist act” and accused Ukraine of carrying out the attack “using weapons provided by the West,” which Moscow believes was involved.
• The Russian military claimed on Sunday to have captured a small town in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, while Kyiv forces insisted the village was “of no military importance”.
• North Korea is currently the largest arms supplier to Russia, the head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Service, Kyrylo Budanov, said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Sunday.
• The scale of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises marks the alliance’s “irreversible return” to Cold War-era maneuvers, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleksandr Hrushko said.
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump’s leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, announced Sunday that he is dropping out of the race and supporting the former Republican president. DeSantis opposed additional US military aid to Ukraine.
• Training with almost 600 soldiers at Polygonul Chinka / Soldiers of the NATO Battle Group, as well as from Romania and allied units stationed in our country, participated.
• In Moscow, Lenin nostalgics commemorated the 100th anniversary of his death / “Our country on the edge of the abyss”. Lenin’s supporters gathered outside his mausoleum in Moscow, Russia, on Sunday to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of the father of the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet Union.
• Liquefied gas terminal in the port of Ust-Luga on the Russian Baltic Sea suffered from the fire, the governor of the region reported on Sunday.

——————

• Sunday’s events related to Russian aggression were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro