As Trump vows to end war, strikes deep in Ukraine weaken Russia russia-ukraine war news

As US President Donald Trump launched a 100-day effort to end the war in Ukraine, Kiev’s long-range weapons were devastating the heart of Russia’s war effort – its oil depots, weapons stockpiles and factories.

Trump, taking the oath of office on Monday, said that success will be measured “not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end and, perhaps most importantly, by the wars we end.” We never fall”.

This was a reference to his oft-stated belief that the administration of his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden, made a mistake by allowing the Ukraine war to begin, and his pledge to end it quickly.

Trump’s special envoy, retired US General Keith Kellogg, has set himself a challenge of 100 days to achieve a ceasefire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held an unprecedented National Security Council meeting on Trump’s inauguration day, reiterating his willingness to engage in negotiations. He said the solution must address the root causes of the war – a reference to NATO’s eastward expansion.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday that the Trump administration presented an opportunity for compromise.

“Compared with pessimism under the previous US president, there is much less scope for opportunity today,” he said at an academic event in Moscow.

As these developments in high politics unfolded, Ukraine was destroying Russian air defenses and burning out some of the enemy’s ability to wage war.

Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said that campaign of strategic intervention was clearly undermining the Russian war effort.

“For several months now, the normal consumption of artillery ammunition by the Russian army has actually halved,” he told Ukrainian television network TSN.

“If earlier this figure used to reach 40,000 per day, now it is much less.

“These attacks undermine the ability of Russian troops to maintain a high intensity of combat operations,” he said.

During the past week, Ukraine took several hits.

Ukraine’s General Staff said three of its drones attacked the Liskinskaya oil depot in the Russian region of Voronezh on January 16, causing it to burst into flames.

“This oil depot provides fuel to the Russian army,” he said.

Geolocated footage showed the refinery burning that day.

Andrey Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said drones also struck the Tambov gunpowder plant in Kuzmino-Gat. He said the plant produces gunpowder and nitrocellulose for use in rocket systems, artillery shells and other systems.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s General Staff said Kiev drones attacked a petroleum products storage facility in Russia’s Tula region, causing a fire.

Employees said the facility supplied supplies to Russia’s armed forces. Ukrainian drones also attacked a Rosneft oil depot supplying the army in the Kaluga region.

The same day, saboteurs set fire to a locomotive in Saint Petersburg, destroying it, the Defense Intelligence Service of Ukraine (GUR) said. GUR said the engine was used to transport munitions.

Ukraine is deploying infantrymen in operations behind enemy lines to destroy Russian equipment.

On Trump’s inauguration day, Kovalenko said, Ukrainian drones attacked the Gorbunov aircraft plant in Kazan.

It is a subsidiary of Tupolev United Aircraft Corporation, which produces and repairs Tu-160 strategic bombers, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Geolocated footage shows a direct hit on fuel tanks at the factory.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said its drones attacked the Liskinskaya refinery for the second time in a week.

“Tanks containing fuel and lubricants, which supply the occupying Russian troops, are burning,” he said.

They also attacked the Smolensk Aviation Plant, “where fighter planes are also being modernized and produced”, the employees said.

Geolocated footage showed a fire at the plant.

Kovalenko said the plant makes Sukhoi Su-25 bombers, which are used to drop glide bombs on the Ukrainian front line.

war on land

Russia continued to attack Ukrainian defenses over the past week, and on Friday succeeded in capturing the village of Vremivka on the Donetsk-Zaporiziya border in eastern Ukraine after a year-long effort.

Vremivka is located near Velika Novosilka, which Ukraine recaptured in a counter-offensive in 2023.

Russia is eager to regain this position as it provides a vantage point to disrupt Ukrainian lines of supply and communications in Donetsk.

A Ukrainian official said the Russians enjoyed a three-to-one numerical advantage in the area, demonstrating Russian priorities.

It appears that Russia is preparing a major new offensive to capture Pokrovsk in Donetsk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukrainian pressure at Kursk has diverted 60,000 of Russia’s most capable personnel from the Ukrainian front to defend Russian ground.

But now, Russia is assembling units south of Pokrovsk, said Konstantin Mashovets, a retired Ukrainian colonel and military analyst, consolidating elements of four separate brigades and three regiments.

The joining together of separate units may indicate that Russia was making excellent efforts to generate these forces.

“Now south of Pokrovsk there is a strange attack grouping of the enemy, which is a kind of mixture of units and formations of two armies at once,” Mashovets said.

“Thanks to all these measures, by concentrating its combat-ready units and formations on a fairly narrow part of the front line, the enemy received and now has a significant superiority in forces.”

Major Viktor Tregubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsia unit defending Pokrovsk, said Russian forces were trying to conduct a final campaign around the city because they lacked the manpower to deal with it.

“To do this, they need to go to the west of the city, which they are currently trying to do,” Tregubov told a television channel.

Sirsky told a webcast that the best Russian units were concentrated in Pokrovsk, indicating that it was the highest Russian priority.

He also revised down earlier estimates of Russian casualties last year, saying 434,000 Moscow troops were killed or wounded in 2024, up from an estimated 150,000 killed.