Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s aide says no part of Russia is safe after Kyiv hits base 800km from bordernewsline24

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has said he will continue to block EU financing for Ukraine as long as oil shipments to Hungary remain interrupted.

Top European Union officials on Tuesday offered to pay Ukraine to repair a damaged pipeline meant to carry crude oil to Hungary, in a bid to persuade the government in Budapest to lift its veto on a massive aid package to the war-wracked country.

“If there’s no oil, there’s no money,” Orbán said in a video posted to social media on Monday. “If President Zelensky wants to get his money from Brussels, he needs to open the Druzhba oil pipeline,” he said.

EU leaders have lashed out at Orbán for agreeing to the loan to Ukraine at a summit in December and then reneging on that deal.

They accuse him of undermining the fundamental EU principle of “sincere cooperation” between the 27 member countries.

Orbán added that he believed Ukraine was deliberately holding up oil flows in order to tip the scales in favour of his political opponent ahead of Hungarian elections next month, but provided no evidence for his claim.

Ukraine and Hungary have been locked in a bitter feud since Russian oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia were halted in January due to damage to the Druzhba pipeline, which crosses Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian officials have blamed the damage on Russian drone attacks.

Ukraine has struck two aircraft repair facilities in Russia’s Novgorod, located about 800km from the Ukrainian border, its military said.

The attack hit plants producing and repairing military transport and cargo planes in the Ulyanovsk and Novgorod regions.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said the attack on the Aviastar plant, part of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation, in the city of Ulyanovsk, was carried out on 16 March.

This facility produces Ilyushin-76MD-90A military transport planes, Ilyushin-78M-90A refueling planes, and provides maintenance for “Ruslan” cargo planes.

The strikes damaged hangars, parking areas and some planes stationed at the facility, Ukraine said.

Explosions were heard this morning in Crimea’s Sevastopol after Ukrainian forces reportedly launched a drone attack on the occupied territory.

The blast struck the city centre, with residents reporting that a building housing the Russian military’s 3rd Radio-Technical Air Defence Regiment was targeted, reported the Kyiv Independent citing Telegram media channels.

Russian-installed interim governor Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed 27 drones were downed on approach to the city.

At least one person has been reported killed and two injured in the attack.

On Sunday night, the 65-year-old One Battle After Another star became the fourth male actor to win his third Oscar. However, he was notably absent from the ceremony, instead choosing to visit the war-torn Ukraine.

In a new clip shared to X by Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, he presented Penn with a custom Oscar statuette made of salvaged metal from a railcar destroyed by Russia.

“You’re missing the Oscars, and plus you gave the last one to the president,” Pertsovskyi said. During one of Penn’s early visits to Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion, he gifted Zelensky one of his Oscar trophies.

On Tuesday, Iran confirmed their chief security, Ali Larijani, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, as they vowed a “decisive and regrettable” revenge for his death.

With no end to the war in sight, the Ukrainian president has stressed that his country risks facing a deficit in missiles to fight against Russia.

“For Putin, a long war in Iran is a plus,” Mr Zelensky told the BBC. “In addition to energy prices, it means the depletion of US reserves, and the depletion of air defence manufacturers. So we [Ukraine] have a depletion of resources.”

He added that he has a “very bad feeling” about the consequences of the Iran war for Ukraine, saying negotiations towards peace are being “constantly postponed. There is one reason: war in Iran”.

Sean Penn was given an “Oscar” constructed from pieces of a Ukrainian train destroyed by the Russians, after he skipped the ceremony to visit Kyiv.

On Sunday, the 65-year-old was awarded Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Steven J Lockjaw in One Battle After Another.

In a video posted by Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, the CEO of Ukrainian Railways, Penn looks emotional as he receives the make-shift statuette. “You’re missing the Oscars… So we made this one,” Pertsovskyi told Penn.

Peace talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine ⁠are on pause amid the Iran war, Izvestia reported this morning, ​citing ⁠Russian officials.

Izvestia said the Kremlin ⁠had confirmed the ​pause ⁠and believes that the ‌Iran war could push Kyiv towards ‌reaching a compromise.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry ‌Peskov said Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev would continue working on investment and economic cooperation but that “the trilateral group is on pause”.

Top Russian leaders have been informed that no part of its country is now safe from Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes that threaten far-off regions in Russia.

Sergei Shoigu, former defence minister and secretary of Russia’s security council told a council meeting on Tuesday that long-range attacks now threaten the Ural region, situated more than 1,500km (930 miles) from the country’s border.

Shoigu said Ukraine’s development of drones has advanced to a level that “no Russian region can feel safe” and the Ural region is already “in the immediate danger zone”.

He added that Ukraine’s aerial strikes on Russian infrastructure surged nearly fourfold in 2025, with more than 23,000 attacks recorded.

“The pace of weapons systems development, primarily that of unmanned drone systems, and the sophistication of the methods used to deploy them are such that no region of Russia can feel safe,” Shoigu told officials in the city of Yekaterinburg.

South Korea’s government ‌is discussing with companies the possibility of importing Russian crude oil and naphtha, Seoul’s industry ministry said, as authorities struggle to ​safeguard energy supplies amid the escalating conflict in ​the Middle East.

The issue is related to the ⁠easing of economic sanctions on Russia, the ministry ​said in a text message to Reuters.

South Korea stopped imports of ​Russian crude oil in December 2022 following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to data from the Korea National Oil Corporation.

Russian crude oil ​accounted for 5.6 per cent of South Korea’s shipments in ​2021, a report from the state-run think tank Korea Institute for ‌International ⁠Economic Policy said.

The country’s energy exposure to the Middle East has increased because of the conflict in Ukraine, the report said. South Korea imports around 70 per cent of ​crude oil ​and half ⁠of naphtha through the Strait of Hormuz, according to South Korean lawmakers and the ​industry ministry.

It is also a big importer ​of ⁠naphtha, which is broken down into petrochemicals used in plastics for automobiles, electronics, clothing and construction.