Ukraine ‘strikes’ logistics hub in Russia as peace talks resume

A fuel depot was yesterday ablaze at one of Russia’s main logistics hubs for its Ukraine war effort, after what Moscow described as a cross-border air raid by Ukrainian helicopters, the first of its kind in the five week war.Ukraine said it would neither confirm nor deny responsibility for the huge fire at the fuel depot in Belgorod, a Russian city near the border which has served as a logistics hub for Russian troops fighting in nearby eastern Ukraine.Security camera footage of the depot showed a flash of light from what appears to be a missile fired from low altitude in the sky, followed by an explosion on the ground. The regional governor said two Ukrainian helicopters had been involved in the raid.Inside Ukraine, Ukrainian forces were moving into territory abandoned by withdrawing Russian troops in the north as peace talks resumed yesterday.But in the southeast, which Russia now says is the focus of its operation, the Red Cross said it had been barred from bringing aid to the besieged city of Mariupol.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said authorities were doing everything possible to reorganise the fuel supply chain and avoid disruption of energy supplies in Belgorod. The incident did not create comfortable conditions for the peace talks, he said. Ukrainian defence ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said he would neither confirm nor deny a Ukrainian role.“Ukraine is currently conducting a defensive operation against Russian aggression on the territory of Ukraine, and this does not mean that Ukraine is responsible for every catastrophe on Russia’s territory,” he said.After failing to capture a single major Ukrainian city in five weeks of war, Russia says it is pulling back from northern Ukraine and shifting its focus to the southeast.Russia has painted its draw-down in the north as a goodwill gesture for peace talks, but Ukraine and its allies say the Russian forces have been forced to regroup after taking heavy losses due to poor logistics and tough Ukrainian resistance.US allies to tap emergency oil reservesUS allies yesterday agreed to tap their emergency oil reserves again in a bid to calm crude prices that have soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The decision was made at an extraordinary ministerial meeting of the 31-nation International Energy Agency, though the group said in a statement that it would only disclose the details “early next week”. The IEA members — which include the US, European countries, Australia and Japan, among others — had already pledged last month to release 62.7mn barrels of oil. The meeting came a day after US President Joe Biden announced a record release of US oil onto the market — 1mn barrels every day for six months, or a total of more than 180mn barrels. The IEA move will mark just the fifth time it has tapped its stockpiles since 1991.