MOSCOW: A drone fell on an oil depot in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, local governor Vladimir Vladimirov said on Friday.
It was the second suspected Ukrainian attack in consecutive days on Russian fuel and energy targets, following a lull of about seven weeks since a fuel facility in Tula was attacked on Sept. 10.
There were no casualties in the incident at the Svetlograd oil depot, Vladimirov said on Telegram.
Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russia’s security services, posted a CCTV video purportedly showing the attack on the oil depot. The video showed that at least one of several fuel tanks was swiftly engulfed by a fireball.
On Thursday, several fuel and energy facilities were targeted in a Ukrainian drone attack on the central Russian region of Bashkortostan, home to Bashneft, a major oil company controlled by Russia’s leading oil producer, Rosneft .
Bashneft operates several refineries in the region, playing a significant role in Russia’s energy infrastructure.
The attacks come days after the Financial Times reported early-stage talks between Ukraine and Russia about potentially halting airstrikes on each other’s energy facilities. The Kremlin dismissed the report.
Russia has called such attacks terrorism, while Ukraine, which stepped up the drone strikes on Russian energy facilities since the start of the year, has said it is striking back in retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defense committee, said in comments to Life media channel earlier this week, that there were no talks on halting the attacks.
“We are not going to spare anyone,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in September that Russia had knocked out the gigawatt equivalent of over half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The European Union aims to restore 2.5 GW of capacity, about 15 percent of the country’s needs, she said, referring to proposed EU-funded repairs.
Drone crashes on oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol region
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Drone crashes on oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol region
- There were no casualties in the incident at the Svetlograd oil depot, Vladimirov said on Telegram
US judge blocks Trump plans to end of deportation protections for South Sudanese migrants
- Kelley issued the order after four migrants from South Sudan along with African Communities Together, a non-profit group, sued
BOSTON: A federal judge on Tuesday blocked plans by US President Donald Trump’s administration to end temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to hundreds of South Sudanese nationals living in the United States.
US District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston granted an emergency request by several South Sudanese nationals and an immigrant rights group to prevent the temporary protected status they had been granted from expiring as planned after January 5.
The ruling is a temporary victory for immigrant advocates and a setback for the Trump administration’s broader effort to curtail the humanitarian program. It is the latest in a series of legal challenges to the administration’s moves to end similar protections for nationals from several other countries, including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.
Kelley issued the order after four migrants from South Sudan along with African Communities Together, a non-profit group, sued. The lawsuit alleged that action by the US Department of Homeland Security was unlawful and would expose them to being deported to a country facing a series of humanitarian crises.
Kelley, who was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden, issued an administrative stay that temporarily blocks the policy pending further litigation.
She wrote that allowing it to take effect before the courts had time to consider the case’s merits “would result in an immediate impact on the South Sudanese nationals, stripping current beneficiaries of lawful status, which could imminently result in their deportation.”
Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the judge’s ruling ignored Trump’s constitutional and statutory authority and that the temporary protected status extended to South Sudanese nationals “was never intended to be a de facto asylum program.”
Conflict has ravaged South Sudan since it won independence from Sudan in 2011. Fighting has persisted in much of the country since a five-year civil war that killed an estimated 400,000 people ended in 2018. The US State Department advises citizens not to travel there.
The United States began designating South Sudan for temporary protected status, or TPS, in 2011.
That status is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events. It provides eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
About 232 South Sudanese nationals have been beneficiaries of TPS and have found refuge in the United States, and another 73 have pending applications, according to the lawsuit.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem published a notice on November 5 terminating TPS for South Sudan, saying the country no longer met the conditions for the designation.
The lawsuit argues the agency’s action violated the statute governing the TPS program, ignored the dire humanitarian conditions that remain in South Sudan, and was motivated by discrimination against migrants who are not white in violation of the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
“The singular aim of this mass deportation agenda is to remove as many Black and Brown immigrants from this country as quickly and as cruelly as possible,” Diana Konate, deputy executive director of policy and advocacy at African Communities Together, said in a statement.
