RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

US suspends aid to Ukraine – Politico

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has frozen nearly all aid grants to Ukraine for 90 days, Politico reported on Friday. The move comes after President Donald Trump ordered a full review of all foreign assistance.

Rubio instructed diplomatic and consular posts to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” Politico said, citing an internal document.

According to Politico, the order has “shocked”State Department officials and appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine.

The magazine cited three current and two former officials familiar with the matter as saying that Rubio’s guidance means that “no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the US government.”

The BBC, which also reviewed the State Department memo, reported that it appears to “affect everything from development assistance to military aid.”

Although the Pentagon previously told Voice of America that the aid freeze would not affect “security assistance to Ukraine,” Rubio’s memo reportedly only granted exceptions for military aid to Israel and Egypt, without mentioning any other country.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein posted what he said was a copy of Rubio’s guidance, which “pauses all new obligations of funding, pending a review, for foreign assistance programs” funded through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

A USAID official told Reuters that among the programs that were frozen are assistance to schools and healthcare, including emergency maternal care and the vaccination of children.

Since February 2022, USAID has provided $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development assistance, and more than $30 billion in “direct budget support,” according to its website.

The US has provided nearly $66 billion in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, according to the Pentagon.

Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor Joe Biden for approving unconditional aid to Ukraine and has vowed to implement cost-cutting measures. He also promised to quickly negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says it hit Russian oil refinery in big drone attack

Ukraine said on Friday it had struck a Russian oil refinery and a microchip factory in a huge drone attack that caused fires at the refinery's production facilities and an oil pumping station.

Russia said hours earlier that its forces had repelled an overnight drone attack, but four industry sources confirmed to Reuters that one of Russia's oldest refineries had been struck in the city of Ryazan southeast of Moscow overnight.

The attack set ablaze oil storage at the refinery and damaged equipment including a railway loading rack and a hydrotreater unit used to remove impurities from refined products, the sources said.

Video footage posted on social media showed smoke and flames engulfing an oil refinery in Ryazan, and people apparently running for safety in panic. Reuters was able to verify the location of the video footage but not when it was shot.

If confirmed, the overnight strikes underline Ukraine's ability to hit targets deep inside Russia as the two sides try to strengthen their positions before any peace talks get under way following Donald Trump's return to the White House.

The U.S. president has said he intends to bring a swift end to nearly three years of war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday he was open to discussions with Trump on the Ukraine war, but that the question of negotiating with Ukraine was complicated by the fact that its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had signed a decree preventing him from conducting talks with Putin.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he saw no objective signs that Ukraine or the West were ready for peace talks.

"On the contrary, Western military supplies to the Ukrainian armed forces are continuing, ultimatums to Russia are being worked out, there is a (Ukrainian) legal ban on negotiations, and the issue of the legitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities is not being resolved," Lavrov said in remarks published on Friday.

THIRTEEN RUSSIAN REGIONS TARGETED

The overnight drone attack appeared to be one of Kyiv's biggest of the war.

Russia's Defence Ministry said 20 Ukrainian drones had targeted the Ryazan region in an assault that involved a total of 121 drones and targeted 13 regions, including Moscow.

The Ukrainian military said on Facebook that fires had broken out at the damaged refinery's production facilities and at an oil pumping station but did not make clear how serious the damage was.

Ukraine's military said it had also struck the Kremniy El microelectronics plant in Russia's Bryansk region, which Kyiv said produced components for Russian air defence missile systems, nuclear-capable missiles, and on-board electronics for combat aircraft.

Russia's state TASS news agency cited a statement from the Kremniy plant as saying work at the factory had been suspended after a drone attack and that nobody had been hurt.

The plant suffered damage to some of its production facilities and to a warehouse, and its power supply had been disrupted, TASS cited the statement as saying.

Pavel Malkov, the Ryazan regional governor, said on Telegram that emergency services were tackling the aftermath.

Russia's Defence Ministry made no mention of casualties or damage but said six drones had been destroyed over the Moscow region and one over the capital itself.

It said drones had also been destroyed over the border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod and the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula. The Saratov, Rostov, Voronezh, Tula, Oryol, Lipetsk and the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops hold a chunk of land despite Russian efforts to eject them, were also targeted.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said early on Friday that air defences had intercepted attacks by Ukrainian drones at four locations around the Russian capital. There was no word of any major damage or casualties.

RT/Reuters