Ukraine updates: Kyiv strikes oil terminal in Crimea

Russian state media outlet VGTRK said on Monday that its online operation had come under an "unprecedented" overnight cyberattack.

The media outlet, which owns Russia's main national TV channels and some regional channels and radio stations, said on Telegram that radio and television broadcasting were, nevertheless, still working as normal.

"Our state media holding, one of the largest, has faced an unprecedented hacker attack on its digital infrastructure," Peskov told reporters, saying VGTRK was working to overcome the consequences of the attack.

"Specialists are working to find out all the circumstances, to understand where the traces left behind by those who organized this hacker attack on the critical infrastructure object lead."

Reuters later cited a Ukrainian government source that claimed Ukrainian hackers were responsible.

A Russian court on Monday sentenced a US citizen to six years and 10 months in prison.

He was convicted on the grounds of serving as a mercenary for Ukraine.

Prosecutors said the convicted man was provided with training, weapons and ammunition when he allegedly signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. He went on to fight alongside those forces until he was captured on April 2 the same year.

Russian investigators said he was paid $1,000 (€912) per month to serve in a Ukrainian territorial defense unit in the city of Izyum. He had been living there since 2014. In April of that year, Russian-backed militants seized towns in the eastern Donbas region.

According to Russian state media, the 72-year-old pleaded guilty to the charge and got a reduced sentence due to his age.

He is the first American known to have been convicted on charges of fighting as a mercenary in the conflict.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement on Monday that it has opened criminal probes against 14 foreign journalists over the last eight weeks for illegally crossing the border between Ukraine and the Kursk region of Russia.

The FSB said the journalists were from France 24 and Switzerland's CH Media.

In August, Ukraine launched a surprise attack on the Kursk region, taking territory around the border town of Sudzha in the first sustained seizure of Russian territory since Moscow's full-scale Russian invasion began in February 2022.

According to Russian law, crossing the border illegally could result in a five-year prison sentence.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Monday that it had shot down 32 Russian-launched drones and two hypersonic Kinzhal missiles.

One of the Kinzhal missiles hit the Starokostyantyniv airfield in Ukraine's Khmelnytskyi region.

All of the strikes occurred overnight.

Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's city military administration, said there was no major damage or casualties after debris came down in the Ukrainian capital.

Ukraine said Monday it had struck an oil facility overnight in Crimea.

Kyiv has increased the number of strikes targeting Russia's energy sector in recent months aiming to hit revenues used by Moscow to fund its invasion.

"At night, a successful strike was carried out on the enemy's offshore oil terminal in temporarily occupied Feodosia, Crimea," the Ukrainian military said in a post on social media.

Russian-installed authorities in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014, said a fire had broken out at an oil depot in the Black Sea port town, adding that there were no casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry meanwhile said that 12 Ukrainian attack drones had been downed over the peninsula overnight, of a total of 21 deployed by Kyiv against Russia.

"The Feodosia terminal is the largest in Crimea in terms of transshipment of oil products, which were used, among other things, to meet the needs of the Russian occupation army," the Ukrainian military said.

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