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MOSCOW, April 8(Reuters) – Ukraine has increased attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent weeks as peace talks have failed to make progress.

Following is a summary of the attacks and their impact:

NORSI

NORSI, Russia’s fourth-largest oil refinery, owned by Lukoil, suspended operations on April 5 following a Ukrainian drone attack, two industry sources said.

NORSI, which is also Russia’s second-largest producer of gasoline, can process 16 million metric tons of oil per year, or around 320,000 barrels per day.

KIRISHI

Russia’s Kirishi oil refinery may partially restart within a month, sources say, after halted processing at the end of March following Ukrainian drone attacks that caused fires. According to sources, three of the four primary units are expected to return to operations, adding up to around 60% of the refinery’s nominal primary capacity.

Last year, Kirishi produced 2 million tons of gasoline, 7.1 million tons of diesel, 6.1 million tons of fuel oil and 600,000 tons of bitumen.

UST-LUGA PROCESSING PLANT

Russian energy company Novatek <NVTK.MM> has suspended gas condensate processing and naphtha export loadings at its Ust-Luga complex after drone attacks causing a fire there, three market sources told Reuters. The Ust-Luga complex’s three processing units, each with a capacity of 3 million tons a year, refine stable gas condensate into light and heavy naphtha, jet fuel, ship fuel oil and gasoil. In 2025, the complex processed 8.0 million tons of gas condensate, company data show.

UFA

Ukraine’s military said last week it had struck Russia’s Bashneft-Novoil oil refinery, over 1,400 km (870 miles) from the Ukrainian border. 

It can process more than 7 million tons of oil per year.

SARATOV REFINERY

The Saratov oil refinery, controlled by Rosneft, was hit by a drone on March 21 and its crude distillation unit has been shut down since the attack, according to sources.

In 2024, the refinery processed 5.8 million metric tons of oil, accounting for 2.2% of all Russia’s oil refining.

ILSKY REFINERY

A fire broke out at the Ilsky oil refinery in southern Russia on February 17 as a result of drone attacks. The blaze was fully extinguished by the next day, according to regional officials.

The Ilsky refinery, with an annual processing capacity of 6.6 million tons of oil, is export-oriented. 

VOLGOGRAD REFINERY

The Volgograd refinery, owned by Lukoil, was completely shut down on February 11 as a result of drone attacks, according to sources. The drones hit, among other facilities, the primary oil processing unit CDU-1 whose capacity of 18,600 tons per day accounts for around 40% of the refinery’s total. In 2024, the Volgograd refinery processed 13.7 million tons of oil.

UKHTA REFINERY 

A fire broke out on February 12 at the Ukhta refinery, owned by Lukoil, following a drone attack, according to regional officials. 

According to sources, the primary oil processing unit CDU-1 caught fire. The unit has a capacity of about 6,000 tons per day, or approximately one-third of the refinery’s total.

In 2025, the Ukhta refinery in northern Russia processed around 3 million tons of oil.

AFIPSKY REFINERY

A fire occurred at the Afipsky refinery in southern Russia on January 21 as a result of drone attacks, according to regional officials.

The refinery is mostly focused on exports. It processed 7.2 million metric tons of crude oil, or 144,000 barrels per day, in 2024.

PORTS AND TANKERS

Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday that Ukraine had attacked facilities at the maritime transhipment complex in the port of Novorossiysk overnight, damaging a mooring point for the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and causing four oil product reservoirs to catch fire.

Kazakhstan said CPC oil exports via the Black Sea were stable after Russia reported the attack. U.S. oil major Chevron said on Tuesday crude oil exports from the vast Tengiz field had been uninterrupted.

Ukrainian drones sparked a fire at Russia’s Sheskharis oil terminal on Monday.

A portion of an oil pipeline at Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Primorsk has been damaged in a Ukrainian drone attack, local governor Alexander Drozdenko said.

Primorsk, one of Russia’s largest export gateways, which can handle 1 million barrels per day, lost at least 40% of its storage facilities in Ukrainian drone attacks last month.

(Reporting by Reuters;)

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By Nathan Layne and Tim Reid

April 8 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump is using Christian rhetoric to rally core supporters behind the increasingly unpopular war with Iran, religious and political experts say – a message amplified from pulpits by evangelical leaders who cast it as a struggle between good and evil.

Trump, who announced a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday, has struggled to persuade Americans to back the war, which has triggered a surge in energy prices, killed American servicemen and Iranians, and further eroded his standing among voters.

In recent days, he has repeatedly turned to Christian language, calling the rescue of a downed U.S. airman in Iran an “Easter miracle” and suggesting the U.S.-Israeli strikes have God’s blessing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gone further, citing scripture to justify the use of “overwhelming violence” against enemies he said “deserve no mercy.”

That message has been echoed by conservative Christian leaders – from those close to Trump like Robert Jeffress, an influential Texas pastor, to small-town preachers. They have emphasized the biblical significance of the modern state of Israel, which many evangelicals associate with a prophecy about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

EVANGELICALS SEE IRAN WAR AS GOOD VS EVIL

Jackson Lahmeyer, an evangelical pastor and Trump supporter who is running for the U.S. Congress, said in an interview he has told his Tulsa, Oklahoma, congregation in some Sunday sermons that wars are typically battles between good and evil and that Iran was no exception.

“Evil people exist, and if you don’t deal with them, they’ll deal with you,” he said. “Good and evil, that’s the story of the Bible. The good news is that at the end good always wins.”

White evangelicals are among Trump’s strongest supporters: more than 80% voted for him in 2024, according to exit polls, and surveys have shown they account for about one-third of his support.

This political reality is a major reason why Trump and members of his cabinet are increasingly leaning into religious framing of the conflict, several political and religious experts told Reuters.

“Look at Mr. Trump’s standing in the polls and recognize he only has a little more than a third of the public on his side. A big part of that constituency is made up of white evangelical Christians,” said Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in South Carolina who studies religion in U.S. politics.

The White House did not respond to questions about Trump’s use of Christian rhetoric but spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement that the president had taken bold action “to eliminate the threat of this terrorist regime, which will protect the American people for generations to come.”

To be sure, U.S. presidents have throughout history invoked the Christian faith in times of war. But the experts interviewed by Reuters said the Trump administration’s use of stark, unequivocal language to frame and justify violence in explicitly religious terms sets it apart.

“It’s the same language as the crusades of the Middle Ages. You know, we must stop the infidel, we must defeat the wicked,” said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah University who has written extensively about evangelicals and politics. “We’ve never seen anything like this in American history.”

The overt religious messaging has drawn criticism from some Democrats and left-leaning Christian leaders, who see it as a misguided use of faith to justify an unpopular five-week-old war that has left 13 U.S. service members and thousands of Iranians dead.

Addressing tens of thousands in St. Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday, which opens Holy Week ahead of Easter for 1.4 billion Catholics, Pope Leo called the conflict “atrocious” and said the name of Jesus should never be invoked to propagate a war.

Doug Pagitt, a progressive evangelical pastor, said he believes the administration was deploying a “very specific Christian narrative” to keep evangelicals onside and Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) coalition intact.

“What they are saying is Trump is on God’s side. You can rest easy at night,” he said. “Because without the Christian coalition, the MAGA support base gets very fractured.”

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published last week, 60% of respondents opposed U.S. military strikes on Iran. The survey highlighted a deep partisan divide, with 74% of Republicans backing the war versus only 22% of Democrats.

TRUMP LIKENED TO JESUS IN WHITE HOUSE MEETING

The prominent evangelist Franklin Graham has praised the strikes on Iran in biblical terms and likened Trump to the biblical figure of Esther, a Jewish queen who, according to the Bible, was elevated by God to save her people from annihilation in ancient Persia, now modern-day Iran.

Ken Peters, leader of the Patriot Church in Tennessee, delivered that message to his congregation this past Sunday, voicing hope that the war would yield a “pro-Israel, pro-America Iran” — a comment that drew applause, according to a video recording the pro-Trump pastor shared with Reuters.

“We see Trump as a man of the world that God is using to help us,” Peters said in an interview, adding that he was supportive of framing the war in religious terms.

Hegseth in particular has used overtly religious language to frame the war. On Sunday, he likened the rescue of the U.S. airman inside Iran to the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.

“A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing,” he said. “God is good.”

In a statement to Reuters, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said wartime leaders have long invoked the Christian faith, pointing to the example of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt distributing Bibles to troops during World War Two.

“Secretary Hegseth, along with millions of Americans, is a proud Christian. Encouraging the American people to pray for our troops is not controversial.”

Similar religious rhetoric was used by evangelical pastors close to Trump at an Easter event with Trump at the White House last week. Televangelist Paula White-Cain, senior adviser to the White House Faith Office, likened Trump to Jesus, saying both were “betrayed and arrested and falsely accused.”

Jeffress, the First Baptist Church pastor in Texas who was among the faith leaders who laid hands on Trump during the meeting, told Reuters he did not believe the Iran war was against Islam or Muslims, but “a spiritual war between good and evil, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.”

(Reporting by Tim Reid in Washington and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Edmund Klamann)

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April 7 (Reuters) – ICE officers shot and wounded a man in California on Tuesday after the suspect tried to ram one of them with his vehicle, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

The man was taken to a hospital and the FBI was on the scene, ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement.

“As officers approached the car, the wanted gang member weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run an officer over. Following their training, our officers fired defensive shots to protect themselves, their fellow agents, and the public,” Lyons said.

The suspected gang member from El Salvador was in the U.S. illegally and had been wanted for questioning in connection with a homicide, ICE said.

Reuters could not independently verify the ICE statement regarding the incident in Patterson, a farm town of 25,000 people in the San Joaquin Valley, about 90 miles (145 km) southeast of San Francisco. 

The Department of Homeland Security said in January that ICE officers experienced 66 vehicular attacks against them in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, up from two such incidents in the previous year.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Rod Nickel)

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WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is aware of Pakistan’s proposal for a two-week extension to a deadline he imposed on Iran, and a response will come, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday.

“The President has been made aware of the proposal, and a response will come,” Leavitt said in a statement.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Editing by Bhargav Acharya and David Ljunggren)

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ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish lawmakers kicked off a debate Tuesday on a draft law package that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, making Turkey the latest country to seek measures to protect young people from dangerous online activity.

If it becomes law, the bill would force social media platforms to install age‑verification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful. It’s unclear how long the parliament debate will last.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s government says the proposal aims to mitigate the online risks to children’s safety and privacy.

“Protecting our children from all kinds of risks, threats and harmful content is our top priority,” Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas, Turkey’s minister for family and social services, said earlier this year.

The main opposition party — Republican People’s Party or CHP — has criticized the proposal, saying children should be protected “not with bans but with rights-based policies.”

Under the draft proposal, digital platforms — such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and others — would have to block children under 15 from opening accounts and introduce parental controls that would manage children’s access.

Online game companies will also be required to appoint a representative in Turkey to ensure they abide by the new regulations. Potential penalties include internet bandwidth reductions and fines imposed by Turkey’s communications watchdog.

The Turkish government has a recent record of restricting online platforms as they have grown as a means of expressing dissent. Online communications were widely restricted during last year’s protests in support of Istanbul’s jailed opposition mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu.

Restrictions on social media access for children under 16 first began in December in Australia, where social media companies revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children.

Last month, Indonesia began implementing a new government regulation banning children younger than 16 from access to digital platforms that could expose them to pornography, cyberbullying, online scams and addiction.

Some other countries — including Spain, France and the United Kingdom — are also taking or considering measures to restrict children’s access to social media amid growing concern that they are being harmed by exposure to unregulated social media content.

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April 8 (Reuters) – Pakistan, a mediator between the U.S. and Iran, on Wednesday requested that U.S. President Donald Trump grant a two-week extension to a deadline he imposed on Iran to end its blockade of Gulf oil.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran is positively reviewing Pakistan’s request for a two-week ceasefire. The White House said Trump is aware of Pakistan’s proposal, saying a response will come.

“To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open Strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a post on X.

Sharif’s comments come after Trump, in a social media post that shocked world leaders, said that “a whole civilization will die tonight”

Trump has given Iran until 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) in Washington – 3:30 a.m. on Wednesday in Tehran – to end its blockade of Gulf oil or see the U.S. destroy every bridge and power plant in Iran.

Sharif urged “all warring parties” to observe a ceasefire everywhere for two weeks “to allow diplomacy to achieve conclusive termination of war”.

He added that diplomatic efforts to settle the war peacefully were “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future”.

Sources told Reuters on Tuesday that talks between the U.S. and Iran were at risk of being derailed following Tehran’s attacks on Saudi Arabian industrial facilities.

Pakistan has been the main go-between for proposals shared by Iran and the United States, but there has been no sign of a compromise.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Franklin Paul, Cynthia Osterman and Alistair Bell)

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WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday it carried out a court-authorized disruption of a DNS hijacking network controlled by a Russian military intelligence unit.

The network was operated by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) Military Unit 26165, the department said in a statement.

It added that the GRU used routers to facilitate hijacking operations against worldwide targets, including individuals in military, government and critical infrastructure sectors.

“GRU actors compromised routers in the US and around the world, hijacking them to conduct espionage. Given the scale of this threat, sounding the alarm wasn’t enough,” said Brett Leatherman, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis)

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By Joey Roulette

HOUSTON, April 7 (Reuters) – The voyage of four astronauts to the far side of the moon has given the world a glimpse of America at its best, offering a respite from global despair and displeasure over U.S-led conflict, tariffs, and crumbling global institutions.

Through a carefully curated flow of high-quality photos, GoPro videos and other footage from NASA, the three American and one Canadian astronauts have provided real-time documentation of NASA’s 10-day Artemis II mission full of historic firsts.

The multibillion-dollar series of missions under the Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface by 2028 before China, and establish a long-term U.S. presence there over the next decade, building a moon base for potential future missions to Mars.

From a cruise ship in the Bahamas, to schools in Canada, viewers gathered to watch the historic lift-off. In Britain, children discussed the mission in school. It dominated Google search traffic for the last week, and mission videos ratcheted up millions of views.

Astronaut Victor Glover captured the rare moment of worldly harmony when he told Earthbound viewers in a transmission from space, “You look beautiful. And from up here you also look like one thing; Homo sapiens is all of us. No matter where you’re from or what you look like — we’re all one people.”

‘WELCOME DISTRACTION’

The mission, a key test before the planned future moon landings, showed the world that the U.S. still has something positive to offer at a time when its government is facing criticism for its strikes with Israel on Iran, which have killed thousands, driven up energy prices, and risked regional escalation.

Trump on Tuesday threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight”, with Iran showing no sign of accepting his ultimatum to open the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening.

“At a time when hell is basically being unleashed here on planet Earth, it’s a welcome distraction to look up in the heavens – at a time of contemplation at Easter – and understand that perhaps humans are still capable of doing great things,” said Ben English, editor of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, in a post on Instagram.

“The news story of Artemis 2 is breaking through,” said former NASA administrator Bill Nelson, noting “this is something that the world can come together and unite (around).” 

News outlets including Qatar’s Al Jazeera, the BBC, Spain’s El Pais and Canada’s Globe and Mail ran photos of the April 1 launch on the front page of their websites, while the Toronto-based newspaper also ran an analysis headlined: “Artemis II and Iran: Two strikingly different missions define the U.S.”

Students gathered at the University of Toronto to watch the launch, with cheers breaking out as the rocket lifted off. Jeremy Hansen, a 50-year-old Royal Canadian Air Force colonel, is the first Canadian — and the first non-U.S. citizen — to fly on a lunar mission.

The mission coincides with tense trade relations between the two countries after President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Canadian goods and in the wake of him repeatedly suggesting that Canada consider becoming the 51st state.

Speaking to the astronauts through mission control communications on Monday night, Trump lauded Hansen and said he had spoken to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canadian ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky, saying “They are so proud of you, and you have a lot of courage.”

SOCIAL MEDIA PLAYS ITS PART

The world watched, commented and hit the “like” button as the astronauts traveled the furthest distance ever from Earth in the Orion spacecraft, a capsule only slightly larger than an SUV. Now on their journey back home, the crew is set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday.

NASA’s social media team played its part, employing an informal tone as it sought to appeal to a wide audience.

“New photos from space dropping NOW,” the space agency wrote with enthusiasm unusual for a staid government entity, as it issued close-ups of the moon and images of astronauts exercising and batting a ball back and forth.

The internet reacted to toilet problems in the space capsule with a flurry of memes, including a mock-up of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a spacesuit, plunger in hand.

When asked about people’s fixation on the toilet woes — since fixed — Artemis II mission management chair John Honeycutt said, “Everybody knows how important that is to us here on Earth, and it’s harder to manage in space.”

(Reporting by Joey Roulette and Chris Sanders; additional reporting by Kyaw Soe Oo in Toronto, Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles and William James in London; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

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HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam unanimously elected Communist Party General Secretary To Lam as president for a five-year term, consolidating his control over both the party and the state.

The move departs from Vietnam’s tradition of shared leadership, in which the jobs have typically been held by different people, and echoes power structures in China under Xi Jinping and neighboring Laos.

It has been widely expected since Lam’s reelection as Communist Party head in January, when observers noted that his consolidation of party authority positioned him to assume the presidency as well.

After being sworn in, the 69-year-old told the National Assembly that his top priority was to maintain peace and stability, which were the foundation for fast and sustainable growth. “We aim to improve people’s livelihoods so all can share the benefits of development,” he said.

This is To Lam’s second time holding both jobs, after briefly doing so in 2024 when his predecessor as party chief, Nguyen Phu Trong, died.

The concentration of power was significant since it meant that Lam had a “stronger mandate and far more political room to push through his agenda than any leaders” since the 1980s, when Hanoi launched reforms to shed a state-run economy in favor of a market-oriented one open to foreigners, said Nguyen Khac Giang, of Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute research center.

“The opportunity is obvious. Faster decision-making, greater policy coherence, and a better chance of pushing difficult reforms at a pivotal moment. But the risk is that concentration of power can move faster than institutional reform,” he said.

Lam’s rise to the top caps the ascent of a career policeman who advanced from Vietnam’s security services to the top of the political system. This was aided by a sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched by his predecessor, which he oversaw as head of the Ministry of Public Security.

As party chief, Lam has led Vietnam’s biggest bureaucratic overhaul since the 1980s, cutting jobs, merging ministries, redrawing provincial boundaries and advancing major infrastructure projects.

He has focused on economic performance and private-sector growth, aiming to move Vietnam beyond the labor- and export-driven model that has helped lift millions from poverty and build a manufacturing-based middle class. The country is targeting 10% or higher annual economic growth over each of the next five years.

But challenges remain, especially the immediate task of turning this ambitious vision into reality with the world economy upended by the energy shock from the war in Iran. Vietnam’s economy expanded at an annualized rate of 7.8% in the first three months of the year, up from 7.1% last year but below the 9.1% target and slower than in late 2025.

Giang said that Lam also faces political hurdles for reform buy-in and the challenge of maintaining Vietnam’s pragmatic approach to foreign policy.

Vietnam is facing U.S. pressure over its trade surplus but also has to balance ties with China, its largest trading partner and rival claimant in the South China Sea.

“It has benefited from a careful balancing strategy in foreign policy, but maintaining that position will become harder in a more turbulent world,” he said.

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LONDON (AP) — A senior member of the British government said Tuesday that Ye should “absolutely not” play the Wireless Festival, as the rapper formerly known as Kanye West offered to meet members of the U.K.’s Jewish community and show he has changed since provoking outrage with antisemitic statements.

Ye, who changed his name in 2021, is booked to perform in front of around 150,000 revelers over three nights, July 10-12, at the open-air festival in London’s Finsbury Park.

Organizers are under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by the rapper, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Last year, he released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. The 48-year-old apologized in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

Wireless sponsors Pepsi, Rockstar Energy and Diageo have pulled out of the festival since Ye was announced as the headliner, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the booking “deeply concerning.”

In a statement Tuesday, Ye said he “would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the U.K. in person, to listen.

“I know words aren’t enough — I’ll have to show change through my actions,” he said. “If you’re open, I’m here.”

Organizer Festival Republic stood by Ye. In a statement issued Monday, managing director Melvin Benn urged people to offer the performer “forgiveness and hope.”

“We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” the statement said.

U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting dismissed the organizers’ statement as “absurd” and said Ye should “absolutely not” perform at Wireless. He said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is considering whether to ban the rapper from entering the U.K.

Benn acknowledged that Mahmood had the power to revoke Ye’s visa to come to Britain.

“If she does, she does, and then the issue is over,” he told the BBC on Tuesday.

A representative for Ye didn’t reply to a request for comment.

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