Russia-Ukraine War: Zelensky Summons Vatican Ambassador Against Pope's 'White Flag' Comment!

A major fire broke out at an oil refinery in the city of Kstovo in western Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region after the drone strike, the regional governor said.

Gleb Nikitin said the fuel and energy complex was hit by unmanned aerial vehicles. Russia's Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery is located in the city and is believed to have started the fire.

Work at the refinery was temporarily halted due to the “incident,” the oil company said. Russia's RIA state news agency said.

“In the morning, the Kstovo industrial zone, the fuel and energy complex, was attacked by unmanned aerial vehicles,” Mr Nikitin said on the Telegram messaging app.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russian security services have long had information that NATO advisers are in Ukraine.

A Kremlin spokesman commented on Polish media reports that NATO troops were in Ukraine.

Russian politicians have submitted a draft bill that seeks to rewrite history by overturning the Soviet decision to transfer Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954.

The move appears aimed at establishing a legal basis for Russia to argue that Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula it claims was annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is not actually part of Ukraine.

A draft submitted by a politician from both houses of Russia's parliament describes the 1954 handover as arbitrary and illegal because no referendum was held.

No announcement has been made as to when the debate will be held.

Vladimir Putin has condemned the 1954 handover of Crimea under then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a violation of the legal norms of the time.

Crimea residents voted in favor of independence with the rest of Ukraine when the Soviet Union broke up, and Russia and Ukraine later recognized each other's borders. But Moscow seized military control of Crimea in 2014 and annexed it after a referendum that Ukraine and Western governments declared illegitimate.

A South Korean man has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of espionage, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

The man, identified as Baek Won-soon, was being held in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok before being transferred to Moscow for “investigative proceedings,” the law enforcement agency said.

The state news agency said it was the first case of its kind against a South Korean national. It did not provide any details on the nature of the alleged spying.

An official approached by South Korea's foreign ministry had no immediate comment.

Russia views South Korea as an “unfriendly” country due to Seoul's support for Western sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine, while maintaining close ties with North Korea.

A former Conservative defense minister has said the government should be “ashamed” of making “deeply disgraceful” cuts to defense spending.

Mark Francois, a member of the cross-party defense committee, told the Commons: “The Red Book, the budget bible, shows very clearly in tables 2.1 and 2.2 that next year's core defense budget has been cut by £2.5 billion. That is true.

“It would be wrong for any government, let alone one that calls itself a conservative party, to try to take one-off payments for Ukraine or higher spending in the nuclear budget from the consolidated fund and pretend they are part of the defense budget when everyone in this House knows they are not.

“So I say to the government, if not for a minister whom I hold in high esteem as the son of a D-Day soldier, in anger rather than sadness, what the government has done is more disgraceful and they should be ashamed of themselves. about themselves.”

Defense Secretary James Cartlidge responded: “When we talk about spending to support nuclear weapons or to support Ukraine buying weapons and ultimately giving them weapons to defend ourselves, I think those are legally described as defense spending.

“After all, how else are we going to pay them, from which budget?”

Russian lawmakers have submitted a draft bill to the State Duma that would rewrite a chapter of history by overturning the 1954 Soviet decision to transfer Crimea from Russia to Ukraine.

The move appears aimed at establishing a legal basis for Russia to argue that Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula it claims was annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is not actually part of Ukraine.

A draft submitted by a lawmaker from both houses of Russia's parliament described the 1954 handover as “arbitrary” and “illegal” because no referendum was held and Soviet authorities had no right to transfer territory from one constituent republic to another without approval. .

There is no word on when it will be debated by parliamentarians.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the 1954 handover of Crimea under then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a violation of the legal norms of the time.

Ukraine has summoned an ambassador to the Vatican to express its “disappointment” at the Pope's suggestion that Kyiv should have the “courage of a white flag” and negotiate a conflict with Russia.

The papal envoy to Ukraine, Archbishop Visvaltas Kulbokas, was invited on Monday, the foreign ministry said.

“Ukraine was informed that Viswaldas Kulbokas was disappointed by the Pope's words,” it said in a statement.

He said the pope should refrain from statements that “legitimize the prerogative of power and encourage further disregard for the norms of international law.”

“The Pope is expected to convey to the world community the need to immediately join forces to ensure the victory of good over evil,” the statement said.

Russia says its air defense systems have destroyed a drone flying from Ukraine to Moscow.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyan said on the Telegram messaging app that there were no casualties and damage at the site in the Ramensky district where the drone debris fell.

A Russian student has been sentenced to 10 days in jail for naming his Wi-Fi after a pro-Ukrainian slogan, the latest case of an ordinary citizen in Vladimir Putin's crackdown on free speech surrounding the war. My colleague reports Shweta Sharma.

A court in Moscow on Thursday found Oleg Tarasov guilty of spreading propaganda and “publicly displaying Nazi symbols” that sent him to prison, state-run RIA reported. Despite having a democratically elected Jewish leader in Volodymyr Zelensky, the Kremlin accuses the Ukrainian government of being made up of neo-Nazis.

Tarasov, a student at Moscow State University, calls his Wi-Fi network “Slava Ukraini!” He named it, a popular anti-war slogan that translates to “Glory to Ukraine” in English, independent Russian Telegram news channel Ostoroshno Novosti reported.

The student was arrested after a police officer reported the WiFi network to authorities on Wednesday morning.