Ukraine updates: Drone sparks fire at Russian oil depot

The Presidium of the Baltic Assembly, an international organization that facilitates cooperation between the parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, has called for continuous support to Ukraine until it achieves complete victory.

In the statement, members of the parliaments of the three Baltic states emphasized the key role of military, financial and political support for Ukraine to enable it to fully regain its Russian-occupied territories. 

They also noted that this support must be continued, sufficient, timely and future-planned, and called on the international community to intensify its efforts to implement the policy of sanctions against Russia.

Meanwhile, the governments of three Baltic states decided to build new defenses on their borders with Belarus and Russia, given security concerns in the region over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"The ministers signed an agreement in Riga, according to which Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will construct anti-mobility defensive installations in the coming years to deter and, if necessary, defend against military threats," the Estonian defense ministry said in a statement.

Russian prosecutors demanded 28 years in prison for Darya Trepova, a woman accused of killing pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast at a St. Petersburg cafe last April.

Tatarsky, whose real name is Maxim Fomin, died when a miniature statue given to him by Trepova exploded. Prosecutors say she knowingly gave Tatarsky a device rigged with explosives.

But Trepova told the court she believed the package contained a listening device, not a bomb. She said she was acting on orders from a man in Ukraine and was motivated by her opposition to Russia's military offensive in Ukraine.

Russia accused Ukraine immediately after the attack of organizing Tatarsky's murder. Senior Ukrainian officials have claimed responsibility or denied involvement.
 

The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, plans to formally ask France's National Assembly if it is aware that French mercenaries have been fighting on Ukraine's side, the Duma's chairman Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Volodin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, made the statement after the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that its forces had killed more than 60 foreign mercenaries, mostly French citizens, in a strike on a building in Kharkiv. It did not provide evidence to back the assertion.

The Duma would consider its address to the French parliament at the next meeting of the lower chamber of parliament, which is scheduled for January 23, its chairman said.

France rejected the allegations, saying it was helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity but had no mercenaries in Ukraine "unlike certain others". French officials said the allegations were part of a Russian campaign to discredit France.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that it had updated its military doctrine to include the deployment of nuclear weapons as a means of strategic deterrence, according to the Russian state-owned TASS news agency.

The new military doctrine also laid out how Belarus would respond if its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — which include both Belarus and Russia among others — were attacked.

At the same time, Minsk says it is ready to resume dialogue with NATO countries "provided that their aggressive rhetoric against Belarus is stopped."

Belarus borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania, as well as Russia and Ukraine. Minsk is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russian troops used Belarusian territory to attack Ukraine in February 2022.

Moscow deployed tactical nuclear missiles in Belarus last year amid tensions with NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Oil tanks at a storage facility in the town of Klintsy in Russia's Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, caught fire after the military shot down a Ukrainian drone attempting to attack targets in the town, regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said.

According to preliminary information, no one was injured in the incident, Bogomaz said, adding that the fire was being extinguished by firefighting teams.

"An airplane-like drone was brought down by the defense ministry using radio-electronic means. When the aerial was destroyed, its munitions were dropped on the territory of the Klintsy oil depot," Bogomaz wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Bogomaz also said a further two Ukrainian drones had been shot down over other parts of Bryansk by air defense units.

Earlier on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had detected a Ukrainian drone in the skies over the Bryansk region. Authorities in the region regularly report drone strikes from Ukraine.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that the war between Russia and Ukraine could expand beyond its current scale. 

"We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day — most recently again against our friends in the Baltic states," Pistorius told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

With regard to the Bundeswehr, the minister emphasized: "We must quickly strengthen our defense capabilities in light of the urgency of the threat situation."

"We have to take into account that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin might even attack a NATO country one day," added Pistorius, who reached his one-year anniversary in the role on Friday.

The defense minister speculated that a war between Russia and NATO would not happen for another "five to eight years" from now.

But he said it was necessary to "shake up our society" to become "war-ready."

At the same time, Pistorius rejected calls for more German military aid for Ukraine, saying the Bundeswehr could not go "all in" and leave Germany "defenseless."

Ukraine's preparations for the deployment of F-16 fighter jets in 2024 are going according to plan, according to the country's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. 

"Pilots are preparing. Engineers are preparing. The infrastructure is being prepared," Kuleba said on Ukrainian television, adding that all the countries that had agreed to provide Ukraine with jets are fulfilling their obligations. 

"I believe that this year we will achieve the first air victories of F-16s in Ukraine," the minister said. Kyiv's priority this year is to achieve air superiority over Russia, as victory in the war will depend on who controls the skies, Kuleba said. 

The Netherlands and Denmark plan to hand over to Ukraine several dozen US F-16 fighter jets. Even more countries, including the US, are involved in training Ukrainian pilots.

According to media reports, the Danish military expects to deliver the first aircraft to Ukraine in the second quarter of 2024.

dh/ab (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)