As US President Donald Trump launched a 100 day effort To end the war in Ukraine, kyiv’s long-range weapons devastated the heart of the Russian war effort: its oil depots, weapons warehouses and factories.
Trump was sworn in Monday, saying success would be measured “not only by the battles we win, but by the wars we end and perhaps more importantly, by the wars we never participate in.”
This was a reference to his oft-stated belief that the administration of his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden, had erred in allowing the war in Ukraine to begin, and to his promise to put an end to it quickly.
Trump’s special envoy, retired US general Keith Kellog, set a 100-day challenge to achieve a ceasefire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin held an unprecedented National Security Council meeting on Trump’s inauguration day, reiterating his willingness to begin negotiations. He said a solution would have to eliminate the root causes of the war – a reference to NATO’s eastward expansion.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said Wednesday that the Trump administration presents an opportunity to reach a deal.
“Compared to the pessimism of the previous US president, today there is little chance of seeing opportunities,” he said at an academic event in Moscow.
As these political developments unfolded, Ukraine was destroying Russian air defenses and burning away some of the enemy’s ability to wage war.
This strategic interdiction campaign was visibly weakening the Russian war effort, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said.
“For several months, the normal consumption of artillery ammunition by the Russian army has actually been halved,” he told TSN, the Ukrainian television channel.
“If previously this figure reached 40,000 per day, it is now much lower.
“These strikes reduce the ability of Russian troops to maintain a high intensity of combat operations,” he added.
Over the past week, Ukraine has recorded several hits.
Ukraine’s General Staff said three of its drones struck the Liskinskaya oil depot in Russia’s Voronezh region, igniting it on January 16.
“This oil depot supplies fuel to the Russian army,” they said.
Geotagged images showed the refinery on fire that day.
Andriy Kovalenko, director of Ukraine’s Center for Combating Disinformation, said drones also struck the Tambov gunpowder factory in Kuzmino-Gat. The plant produces gunpowder and nitrocellulose for use in rocket systems, artillery shells and other systems, he said.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s General Staff said kyiv drones struck an oil storage facility in Russia’s Tula region, setting it on fire.
The facility supplied the Russian armed forces, the General Staff said. Ukrainian drones also struck a Rosneft oil depot in the Kaluga region, which supplied the army.
On the same day, saboteurs set fire to a locomotive in St. Petersburg, destroying it, the Defense Intelligence Service of Ukraine (GUR) said. The engine was used to transport war materials, the GUR said.
Ukraine has deployed infantrymen in its campaign behind enemy lines to destroy Russian equipment.
On the day of Trump’s inauguration, Kovalenko said, Ukrainian drones struck the Gorbunov aircraft factory in Kazan.
It is a subsidiary of Tupolev United Aircraft Corporation, which produces and repairs Tu-160 strategic bombers, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Geotagged images showed direct impacts on the plant’s fuel tanks.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said its drones had struck the Liskinskaya refinery for the second time in a week.
“The fuel and lubricant tanks that the occupiers supply to Russian troops are on fire,” they said.
They also hit the Smolensk aircraft factory, “where combat aircraft are also modernized and produced,” the General Staff said.
Geotagged images showed fires in the factory.
Kovalenko said the factory makes Sukhoi Su-25 bombers, which are used to drop glide bombs on Ukraine’s front lines.
The war on the ground
Russia has continued to attack Ukrainian defenses over the past week and on Friday, after a year of efforts, succeeded in capturing the village of Vremivka, on the border between Donetsk and Zaporizhia in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine.
Vremivka is adjacent to Velyka Novosilka, which Ukraine reconquered in a counter-offensive in 2023.
Russia is keen to reclaim this position because it provides a vantage point to disrupt Ukrainian supply and communications lines in Donetsk.
A Ukrainian officer said the Russians had a three-to-one numerical advantage in the region, demonstrating Russian priorities.
Russia also appeared to be preparing a major new offensive to capture Pokrovsk, in Donetsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s advance toward Kursk had diverted 60,000 of Russia’s most capable military personnel from the Ukrainian front to defend Russian territory.
But now Russia has assembled units south of Pokrovsk, said Konstantin Mashovets, a retired Ukrainian colonel and military analyst, consolidating elements of four different brigades and three regiments.
The grouping of disparate units could indicate that Russia was making exceptional efforts to generate these forces.
“Now, south of Pokrovsk, there is a rather peculiar enemy strike group, which is a kind of mixture of units and formations of two armies at once,” Mashovets said.
“Thanks to all these measures, concentrating its combat-ready units and formations on a fairly narrow section of the front line, the enemy achieved and now has significant superiority in forces.”
Major Victor Tregubov, spokesman for the Khortytsia unit defending Pokrovsk, said Russian forces were trying to bypass the town because they lacked the manpower to attack it head-on.
“To do this, they need to go to the west of the city, which is what they are currently trying to do,” Tregubov told a TV channel.
Syrskii said in a webcast that Russia’s best units were concentrated in Pokrovsk, signaling that it was Russia’s top priority.
It also revised upwards previous estimates of Russian casualties last yearclaiming that 434,000 Moscow soldiers had been killed or wounded in 2024, with an estimated number of 150,000 killed.
