2025

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces hit an oil terminal, a pipeline, two parked jet fighters and two ships in a series of strikes on Russian soil, officials said Monday.

The attacks are part of an ongoing campaign to disrupt the Russian war effort and sow fear behind the front line, where outnumbered Ukrainian troops are straining to hold back Russia’s bigger army after almost four years of war.

The strikes also seek to undermine President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to portray Russia as negotiating from a position of military strength in U.S.-led peace efforts, which have yet to make a breakthrough on key points.

The killing of a top Russian general by a car bomb in Moscow on Monday, with investigators suspecting Ukraine was behind it, could be another instance of Kyiv picking surprise targets.

Ukrainian forces struck the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal, an ammunition depot and a launch site for attack drones inside Russian territory and Russian-held Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Monday.

A pipeline, two docks and two ships were damaged in the southern Krasnodar region, and a large blaze broke out, the statement said, without specifying what kind of weapons were used in the attack.

It added that a Ukrainian-made missile also hit a temporary base for Russia’s 92nd River Boat Brigade in Olenivka, in the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

A separate strike targeted an ammunition depot in a Russian-controlled portion of the Donetsk region, aiming to slow the Russian advance there, the General Staff said. A Russian launch site for attack drones was also hit.

Ukrainian partisans set fire to two Russian jet fighters in an operation on Sunday evening at a base near Lipetsk, a city in western Russia, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said only that its forces shot down 41 Ukrainian drones overnight, three of them over the Krasnodar region.

Meanwhile, Russian forces kept up their targeting of Ukraine’s energy sector, aiming to deprive civilians of heat and running water during the frigid winter. Russia has tried to knock out power in Ukraine throughout the war, in a tactic that Ukraine refers to as “weaponizing winter.”

Energy infrastructure across five regions were attacked during the night, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said.

Russia struck Ukraine with 86 drones of different types overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. Ukrainian forces stopped 58 of them, it said.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (Reuters) – China is likely to have loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across three silo fields and has no desire for arms control talks, according to a draft Pentagon report which highlighted Beijing’s growing military ambitions.

China is expanding and modernizing its weapons stockpile faster than any other nuclear-armed power. Beijing has described reports of a military buildup as efforts to “smear and defame China and deliberately mislead the international community.”

Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he may be working on a plan to denuclearize with China and Russia. But the draft Pentagon report, which was seen by Reuters, said Beijing did not appear to be interested.

“We continue to see no appetite from Beijing for pursuing such measures or more comprehensive arms control discussions,” the report said.

In particular, the report said that China had likely put in more than 100 solid-fuelled DF-31 ICBMs in silo fields close to China’s border with Mongolia – the latest in a series of silo sites. The Pentagon had previously reported the existence of the fields but not the number of missiles loaded.

The Pentagon and China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The draft Pentagon report did not identify any potential target of the reported newly placed missiles. U.S. officials noted that the report could change before it was sent to lawmakers.

The report said China’s nuclear warhead stockpile was still in the low 600s in 2024, which reflected “a slower rate of production when compared to previous years.”

But the report added that China’s nuclear expansion was ongoing and it was on track to have over 1,000 warheads by 2030.

China has said it adheres to a “nuclear strategy of self-defense and pursues a no-first-use policy.”

Trump has said he wants the United States to resume nuclear weapons testing, but it is unclear what form that will take.

The wide-ranging Pentagon report detailed China’s military build-up and said that “China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027.”

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has never renounced use of force to “reunify” with the island.

Beijing was refining its military options to take Taiwan by “brute force,” the report said, adding that one option could include strikes 1,500-2,000 nautical miles from China.

“In sufficient volume, these strikes could seriously challenge and disrupt U.S. presence in or around a conflict in the Asia-Pacific region,” it added.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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