An open fire at an oil depot in the Russian town of Tikhoretsk in the southern Krasnodar region has been extinguished, local officials said this morning.

Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev has said that a US waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil would affect 100 million barrels of Russian crude.

“Against the backdrop of the growing energy crisis, further easing of restrictions on Russian energy supplies appears increasingly inevitable, despite resistance from some Brussels bureaucrats,” Dmitriev wrote on Telegram.

The US has issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products currently stranded at sea, in what treasury secretary Scott Bessent said was a step to stabilise global energy markets roiled by the Iran war.

Vladimir Putin’s “hidden hands” may be behind some of Iran’s tactics in the Middle East conflict, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey visited the Northwood military headquarters in Hertfordshire on Thursday, where he was briefed on the latest updates on British operations in the region.

The UK’s chief of joint operations, Lieutenant General Nick Perry, told the defence secretary there were “definitively” signs of a link between Russia and Iran, including Iran’s use of drones “as learned from the Russians”.

A train and some railway infrastructure were set on fire in August in Latvia by two people acting in Russia’s interests, Latvia’s State Security Service said Wednesday, the latest in a series of warnings by Western officials who say Russia is attacking critical infrastructure across Europe.

The security service said the two people set fire to the train and some railway relay cabinets — boxes that contain equipment to control train movements — and also filmed the attack. The video material was later sent to the people who commissioned the arson who used it for propaganda purposes to claim the fires were in Ukraine, the service said.

The arson in August is one of аt least 151 incidents of sabotage and malign activity across Europe tracked by The Associated Press and linked to Russia by Western officials since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Officials say a goal of the attacks is to undermine support for Ukraine, spread fear and discord in European societies and drain investigative resources. Russia often uses proxies for such attacks and some perpetrators say they have no idea they have been hired by Moscow.

An envoy of Vladimir Putin said Washington was “beginning to better understand” the importance of Russian oil after what he described as a “productive meeting” with US negotiators over the invasion of Ukraine.

“We discussed promising projects that could contribute to the restoration of Russian-American relations and the current crisis on global energy markets,” Kirill Dmitriev wrote on Telegram.

Hungary has returned two seized armoured bank vehicles to Ukraine but withheld cash and gold ​worth approximately $82m, citing an investigation into alleged money laundering, a move ‌Kyiv has denounced as theft.

Relations between Hungary and Ukraine, already strained by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s close ties to Russia, reached a new low last week when Hungary detained seven Ukrainians transporting ​cash and gold.

Kyiv accused Budapest of taking the bank employees hostage in ​order to pressure Ukraine into restarting suspended oil shipments. It said ⁠the employees were engaged in a legitimate transfer.

Those detained were expelled by Hungary ​and crossed into Ukraine on Friday.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal ​Court said they had opened an ‌investigation into whether the government of Belarus committed crimes that led to deportations of its opponents.

Belarus is not a member of ​the ICC, but the case was brought by Lithuania, ​which is a member. Prosecutors determined that at least ⁠part of the alleged crimes by Belarusian authorities were ​committed on Lithuania’s territory, giving them jurisdiction.

The prosecutors said there was reason to believe the actions of ​Belarus were targeted against “actual or perceived opponents” of the ​Belarusian government.

“There is also a reasonable basis to believe that these ‌crimes ⁠were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, considering their large scale, the number of victims, and the organised nature of the ​acts”, they ​added.

Belarusian opposition ⁠leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said she welcomed the announcement.

Explosions were heard at Russian airfields in an apparent Ukrainian attack on military targets in the Black Sea region overnight, Kyiv Independent reported.

Several explosions were reportedly heard at the Khanskaya military airfield near the southern Russian city of Maykop in Krasnodar Krai during the early hours of today.

Shortly after, explosions were heard near Russia’s Belbek military airfield and separately at the nearby Kacha airbase in Crimea.

The US has issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products currently stranded at sea, in what treasury secretary Scott Bessent said was a step to stabilise global energy markets roiled by the Iran war.

The move was the latest attempt by president Donald Trump’s administration to tame energy prices after the US and Israeli strikes on Iran and the subsequent response by Tehran widened regional tensions and paralyzed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting vital Middle East oil and gas flows and sending energy prices higher.

On Wednesday, Washington announced it would be releasing 172 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve in an effort to curb sky-rocketing oil prices in the wake of the war in Iran. That release was part of a broader commitment by the 32-nation International Energy Agency (IEA) to release 400 million barrels of oil.

The IEA said earlier on Thursday that the war in the Middle East was creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history. The license issued by Washington on Thursday authorizes the delivery and sale of Russian crude oil and petroleum products loaded on vessels as of March 12 and valid through midnight Washington time on 11 April, according to the text of the license posted on the Treasury Department’s website.

The move reflects White House worries that the surge in oil prices after nearly two weeks of US and Israeli strikes on Iran will hurt US businesses and consumers ahead of the November midterm elections, when Trump’s fellow Republicans hope to retain control of Congress.

Mr Bessent, in a statement on X released hours after benchmark oil prices shot above $100 a barrel, said the measure was “narrowly tailored” and “short-term” and would not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government.

“The temporary increase in oil prices is a short-term and temporary disruption that will result in a massive benefit to our nation and economy in the long-term,” Bessent said in the statement, echoing Mr Trump.

The presidents of Romania and Ukraine signed a statement of intent on Thursday to produce Ukrainian defence systems including drones in Romania, they said after a meeting in Bucharest.

Romania, an EU and NATO member, shares a 650-km border with Ukraine, including along the Danube River where Ukrainian ports on the opposite bank have come under Russian attack and Russian drones have breached Romanian airspace.

After four years of fending off Russia’s assaults, Ukraine says it has developed drone and counter-drone systems that can help protect NATO countries.

A statement signed by the two presidents said they had agreed to “enable the production of Ukrainian defence systems and capabilities in Romania with the purpose of strengthening the defence industries of Ukraine and Romania.”

Last year, Romanian officials said they aimed to partner with Ukraine in building drones under a new EU defence funding mechanism, SAFE.

“We talked about our military cooperation and one of the documents we signed also includes cooperating on drone production,” said Romania’s President Nicusor Dan, a centrist who last year defeated a right-wing candidate sceptical of close ties to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s expertise lay particularly in integrating drone software into a country’s wider defense system.