Kyiv Burns Refineries 1,300km Inside Russia; EU Renews Sanctions but Frees Two Oligarchs
Ukraine confirmed strikes on the Ufa refinery in Bashkortostan — 1,300 kilometres from the border — and Rosneft’s Kuibyshev plant in Samara, while Russia’s 212-drone barrage killed four in Dnipro and wounded five in Kyiv. Mr Trump observed Russia has “unfortunately lost control” of its oil industry — while urging Kyiv to stop the very strikes achieving it. The EU renewed its near-3,000-name sanctions list after a last-hours scramble — dropping billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman.
Ufa extends Ukraine’s reach past every previous marker — deep in the Urals foothills, at a refinery Russia assumed geography protected — and paired with Moscow’s own plant still dark, the campaign Washington wants paused is the one campaign visibly working, a fact the president’s own “lost control” comment concedes even as he asks Kyiv to sheath it. The Usmanov-Fridman release is the quiet scandal of the day: two of Russia’s most prominent billionaires walking off the list in a renewal scramble shows the EU’s unanimity machinery being farmed by whichever capital holds out longest — a preview of how sanctions architecture erodes the moment peace talk begins. Watch which member state claimed that price — and whether the energy-truce diplomacy freezes Ukraine’s deep-strike tempo this week.