Ukraine updates: Kyiv strikes Russian oil facilities

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told the BBC that NATO and the European Union provoked Russia's war in Ukraine. 

He was being interviewed by the British broadcaster ahead of the United Kingdom's general election next month.

"We provoked this war," Farage said.

He went on to say, "Of course, it is his fault." Pointing to a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, "he has used what we've done as an excuse."

Farage said he had been arguing since the 1990s that "the ever eastward expansion"

Farage, whose entry into the campaign before a July 4 election dealt a further blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives, was one of the most prominent politicians campaigning for Brexit. 

He is also a former member of the European Parliament. 

The German Federal Prosecutor's office says three foreign nationals have been arrested on suspicion of working for a foreign secret service.

The three accused were said to have traveled to Germany on behalf of a foreign secret service to collect information on a person from Ukraine who was staying in the country.

Hesse state police arrested the three men in the German financial hub of Frankfurt am Main and applications for arrest warrants were submitted to an investigating judge. The three appeared in court on Thursday to be placed in custody ahead of a possible indictment.

The three were said to have scouted out a cafe in the German financial hub of Frankfurt am Main, where the target individual was believed to be.

Prosecutors named the three only as Ukrainian national Robert A., Armenian national Vardges I., and Russian national Arman S. Their full names weren't released in line with German press and privacy rules.

A string of spying cases in Germany, involving alleged Russian and Chinese agents, have recently garnered widespread attention. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said that Russia would continue developing its nuclear arsenal in the interests of deterrence, the Reuters news agency reported.

"We plan to further develop the nuclear triad as a guarantee of strategic deterrence and to preserve the balance of power in the world," Reuters quoted Putin as having said.

The comments were made as Putin spoke in the Kremlin at a ceremony attended by military, police and intelligence service graduates.

Putin's reference to the nuclear triad is Russia's nuclear weapons delivered by land, sea and air.

European Union member states formally approved launching accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova next week.

EU ministers will start negotiations with Ukraine in Luxembourg on Tuesday afternoon.

Talks with Moldova will begin later on the same day.

Kyiv and Chisinau applied to join the EU shortly after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Membership talks are likely to go on for years with applicants required to bring regulations in line with EU standards and maintain media freedom and the rule of law.

Last week, the EU's Council of Ministers said that ambassadors had agreed "in principle" to start accession negotiations with the two former Soviet republics.

Officials aim to formally launch accession talks before Hungary takes over the council's rotating presidency next month. Budapest has in the past raised objections to funding military aid to Ukraine out of the EU's common budget and says it does not plan to hold any further rounds of talks with Kyiv during its six month term in the presidency.

Ukraine's military confirmed that its forces used drones to strike four Russian oil refineries as well as radar stations.

"Unmanned aerial vehicles attacked the Afipsky, Ilsky, Krasnodar, and Astrakhan oil refineries," the Ukrainian military said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

In the statement, it also claimed responsibility for drone attacks on Thursday that hit fuel depots in the Russian region of Tambov and Adygea.

Russia's military earlier said it had downed 70 drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally seized by Russia in 2014.

It also said it shot down 43 drones over the southwestern Krasnodar region and another over the Volgograd region.

Kyiv deems Russian oil facilities legitimate military targets for fueling Russian troops, and has this year significantly stepped up attacks on them using drones.

Russian officials said Ukraine launched a "mass" drone attack on the annexed Crimean Peninsula and several parts of southern Russia, including the Krasnodar region, where authorities had earlier reported a fire in an oil refinery.

The volley of drones, of which the Defense Ministry said it shot down 114, left one person killed. 

"Russian anti-aerial defense systems intercepted and destroyed 70 drones over Crimea and the Black Sea, 43 drones over the Krasnodar region and one drone over Volgograd," the ministry said in a statement.

Krasnodar Regional governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on the Telegram messaging app that the drones hit an oil refinery, among other targets. 

The man killed was a worker in a boiler room near the Yuzhny train station which was hit by a drone.

Emergency crews were at the sites of the attacks. They said three municipalities were targeted. 

Russian officials say a fire has broken out at an oil refinery in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar following an overnight drone attack. 

Two people were injured, but the fire has been extinguished, the region's crisis management center said early Friday. 

In addition, the bus station in Yuzhny and a boiler plant in the city of Krasnodar were damaged as a result of a drone attack on the region in the early hours of the morning. At least four people were injured by falling debris from a drone. 

Emergency officials, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said three municipalities came under attack. Fragments from one drone fell on a guest house in Temriuk district, but its residents were evacuated and there were no injuries.

Recently, Ukrainian drone attacks have been targeting oil storage facilities and refineries in Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to expand the construction of solar power systems in the country. The goal is to stabilize the power grid, which has been severely affected by Russian attacks.

"The government has been tasked with immediately presenting a program to encourage the installation of solar generation and energy storage systems in Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Thursday.

Under the plan, citizens who install solar panels will be eligible for an interest-free loan. 

Zelenskyy also said that measures have been taken to protect energy facilities from ongoing attacks by Russia, and specific deadlines have been set for the completion of protective structures.

The Ukrainian president pledged to build more decentralized energy facilities to ensure that administrative and critical infrastructure buildings have an alternative energy source during power outages.

According to official figures, about half of Ukraine's energy production capacity has been lost due to systematic Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities.

dh/sms (AP, AFP, DPA, Reuters)