KYIV, Ukraine: Russia launched its biggest attack of the war overnight against natural gas facilities run by Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz Group, officials said Friday.
Russia fired a total of 381 drones and 35 missiles at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s air force in what officials said was an attempt to wreck the Ukrainian power grid ahead of winter and wear down public appetite for the 3-year-old conflict.
“This is deliberate terror against civilian facilities that provide gas extraction and processing for the normal life of people,” Serhii Koretskyi, chief executive of Ukraine’s state-owned gas company Naftogaz, said in a statement. “It has no military purpose. This is yet another act of Russian malice aimed solely at disrupting the heating season and depriving Ukrainians of warmth in winter.”
Russia aimed 35 missiles, many of them ballistic, and 60 drones at Naftogaz’s gas extraction and processing facilities in the northeastern Kharkiv and central Poltava regions, some of which sustained critical damage, Koretskyi said.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces launched a mass strike using drones and guided weapons against Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and the gas and energy infrastructure that supports it. “All designated targets were hit,” it said in a statement.
As winter has approached each year since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbor, Russian forces have blasted Ukraine’s power grid. Ukraine says it is an attempt to weaponize winter by denying civilians heat, light and running water.
Russia has recently escalated its strikes on the power grid, as well as on Ukraine’s rail network, which is essential for military transport.
“Russia is terrorizing civilians and trying to disrupt the heating season,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in a statement.
In Poltava, the attacks injured an 8-year-old child and two women, according to authorities. One blast also shattered about half of the windows in the city’s historic St. Nicholas Church, which is listed as an architectural monument of local significance.
Ukraine has used its domestically produced long-range drones to hit back at Russia, with drones strikes on the Orsk oil refinery, located about 1,400 kilometers (900 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said Friday.
A Ukrainian drone attack also briefly halted operations at the Azot chemical plant, one of Russia’s largest, in Berezniki, more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow, officials said.
Russian air defenses shot down 20 Ukrainian drones overnight, most of them over the Black Sea, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday.
Russia targets Ukraine’s natural gas facilities in biggest attack of the war
https://arab.news/2cte5
Russia targets Ukraine’s natural gas facilities in biggest attack of the war
- Attacks hit Naftogaz’s gas extraction and processing facilities in the northeastern Kharkiv and central Poltava regions
- Russia fires a total of 381 drones and 35 missiles at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s air force
Modi starts Mideast-Africa tour as India-Oman free-trade pact nears completion
- Oman’s Shoura Council approved the trade deal’s draft last week
- Modi begins trip in Amman, heading to Addis Ababa and Muscat
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi left New Delhi on Monday for a tour covering Jordan, Oman and Ethiopia, as his government looks to strengthen partnerships with West Asia and Africa and finalize a free-trade deal with Muscat.
Modi’s four-day trip will start in Amman, at the invitation of King Abdullah.
“I am sure this visit will boost bilateral linkages between our nations,” Modi said on social media upon his arrival in Jordan, where he was received by Prime Minister Jafar Hassan.
On Tuesday, he is scheduled to arrive in Addis Ababa for his first state visit to Ethiopia. A day later, he will be in Muscat, where the Shoura Council last week approved the draft Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India.
“If it is signed during this visit, it will significantly deepen the economic ties between India and Oman. And it will open up a new chapter in the history of India-Oman trade and commercial relationship,” Ministry of External Affairs Secretary Arun Chatterjee told reporters ahead of Modi’s departure.
He said Modi would be accompanied by a high-level delegation for his second visit to Oman, after his last trip in February 2018. It also follows the visit of Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq to India in December 2023.
Free-trade negotiations between India and Oman began in November 2023, with the first round in New Delhi and the second in Muscat.
When the talks concluded in March 2024, Oman sought revisions on market-access terms and the final signature was postponed.
Announcements of the deal’s possible finalization have been made in the past few months by India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and the Omani ambassador to New Delhi, Issa Saleh Al-Shibani.
It would be its second with a GCC country after a 2022 trade deal with the UAE, as India has been trying to reach a similar agreement with the whole bloc.
“The framework is expected to be the same as the UAE’s, that is, a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. This is significant given that the progress on India-GCC FTA has been slow and non-consequential so far,” said Muddassir Quamar, associate professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
While Oman is one of Delhi’s smaller GCC trading partners — trailing behind the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with bilateral trade about $10 billion — it remains strategically important, particularly in energy and logistics.
“The FTA is likely to give a boost to India-Oman economic and trade relations, especially of goods and services. (It is) important given India has worked to enhance its trade and economic relations with the Gulf countries that are (among) the most dynamic and fast-expanding global economies,” Quamar told Arab News.
“It is also important because there is immense potential for Indian businesses and industries to partner with their Gulf and Omani partners in contributing to the diversification and economic growth plans.”
