Ukraine war briefing: Shadow fleet is launchpad for Russian ...

Russia is using its illicit “shadow fleet” of oil tankers for intelligence gathering and sabotage operations including launching drones, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Currently, Russians are using tankers not only to earn money for the war, but also for reconnaissance and even sabotage activities. It is entirely possible to stop this,” said Ukraine’s president after a briefing from his foreign intelligence chief, Oleh Ivashchenko, describing “sabotage and destabilising operations in Europe”.
Zelenskyy said: “Recent cases of drones being launched from tankers are one such example. We are sharing this information with partners and it is important that their response to Russia be real.” Danish police have not ruled out the possibility that one such ship, the Boracay, was involved in drone sightings above airports and military installations in Denmark in late September. The ship was later boarded and halted by French troops. Its captain is scheduled to go on trial in France in February accused of failing to cooperate with authorities.
Ukrainian drones have attacked an oil refinery at Tyumen in Siberia, more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) behind the frontline, marking potentially Kyiv’s deepest ever strike into Russian territory. At least two UAVs damaged its distillation column and water supply system, said the independent Russian news outlet Astra. The regional government sought to play down the attack, saying “three UAVs were detected and neutralised on the territory of an enterprise in the Antipino district of Tyumen”.
Fire continued to rage at the Feodosiya oil terminal in Russian-occupied Crimea after an earlier Ukrainian strike, with reports saying the blaze had spread further through the facility.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he was discussing with Russia and Ukraine how to restore off-site power to the illegally Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been cut off from external power for more than a week. It is being cooled by emergency diesel generators that are not intended to be used long-term.
Russia meanwhile claimed a Ukrainian drone crashed into a cooling tower of the Novovoronezh nuclear plant in Russia’s Voronezh region which borders Ukraine. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine – each side regularly accuses the other of courting disaster by targeting nuclear power stations.
Ukraine wants to increase natural gas imports by 30% amid intensified Russian airstrikes on its gas infrastructure, damage from which Ukrainian energy minister, Svitlana Hrynchuk, described on Tuesday as significant. Russia had attacked energy facilities 26 times in the last 24 hours, said the minister. “We plan to import throughout the coldest months, although the priority now is to secure imports for October-December and, if necessary, for other months … The faster we can restore (production), the less we will need to import.”
It is not in Poland’s interest to hand over a Ukrainian man wanted by Germany for suspected involvement in explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has declared. Tusk added it was ultimately for a court to decide on the extradition of Volodymyr Z, who plans to plead not guilty according to his lawyer. German prosecutors allege the trained diver is one of a group of people suspected of renting a sailing yacht and planting explosives on the pipelines, which run from Russia to Germany, in September 2022.
Tusk reiterated Poland’s longstanding opposition to the pipelines, which Warsaw says were key to making Europe too dependent on Russian energy. “The problem of Europe, the problem of Ukraine, the problem of Lithuania and Poland is not that Nord Stream 2 was blown up, but that it was built,” Tusk said. No one has taken responsibility for the Nord Stream blasts and Ukraine has denied any role. Volodymyr Z’s Polish lawyer has said his client has done nothing wrong and that he will plead not guilty. Another Ukrainian man was arrested in Italy in August and plans to fight extradition to Germany.
Taiwan’s economy minister has said privately run refiners are willing to stop buying Russian naphtha – an oil product – should the EU ask them to. It comes after criticism of Taiwan’s continued business with Russia. Taipei has joined the US and major western states in putting broad sanctions on Russia but did not explicitly ban energy imports – although state-run firms stopped importing Russian oil in 2023. In common with Ukraine, Taiwan faces the threat of potential invasion by a larger neighbour – in its case, China – that regards it as a possession rather than an independent country.