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Trump approves sanctions bill targeting India, China and Brazil for buying cheap Russian oil
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian leader Vladimir Putin of being intent on using wintry weather as a weapon rather than working towards a diplomatic resolution of nearly four years of conflict.
Russian drone strikes knocked out power to the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine, leaving more than 600,000 households without electricity in a cold snap, with temperatures in some parts of the country below freezing.
President Zelensky said the strikes were aimed at “breaking” his country as officials raced to restore power.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has given his approval for Republicans to push ahead with a bill in Congress that would punish countries for buying Russian oil.
Senator Lindsey Graham said: “This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine.”
Earlier, Mr Zelensky said he believed Russia’s war could be brought to an end in the first half of this year, insisting that negotiations reached a new milestone with talks this week in Paris.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Russia’s latest strikes on electricity, heating and water infrastructure in Ukraine, which left hundreds of thousands in southeastern Ukraine without power and heat.
“There is absolutely no military rationale in such strikes on the energy sector and infrastructure that leave people without electricity and heating in wintertime,” he wrote in a post on X.
Mr Zelensky added that the ongoing diplomatic process to end the war should not affect the supply of air defence systems and equipment to Ukraine.
The EU remains heavily reliant on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), analysis has shown, with no signs that imports are set to slow down in 2026.
EU purchases from a single oil project in northwest Siberia, a strategically important development known as the Yamal project, netted €7.2 billion ($8.4 billion) of revenue for the Kremlin in 2025 alone.
Around 15 million of the 19.7 million tons (76.1 per cent) of LNG exported from Yamal was shipped to the EU, according to analysis of data published by trading intelligence website Kpler, carried out by environmental NGO Urgewald.
Full report below:
Ukrainian officials raced to restore power on Thursday after Russian drone attacks plunged two southeastern regions into near-total blackout, strikes that President Volodymyr Zelensky said were aimed at breaking his country.
Mr Zelensky said Russia was intent on using wintry weather as a weapon rather than allowing US-led diplomacy to work towards a resolution of nearly four years of conflict.
Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy system as Ukrainian forces fend off Russian advances on the battlefield and Kyiv faces US pressure to quickly secure a peace deal.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham has hailed the new proposed legislation to sanction Russian oil buyers, saying that Vladimir Putin is “all talk” when it comes to peace efforts.
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent,” Graham said in a statement.
Senator Graham said he met with Trump at the White House earlier yesterday, during which the president “green-lit” the Russia sanctions bill that has been in the works for months.
Graham had signaled previously that Trump has blessed the bill, only for it to encounter additional obstacles. But a White House official confirmed to The Associated Press that the president supports the sanctions legislation.
The bill, chiefly written by Graham and Democrat senator Richard Blumenthal, allows the administration to impose tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports. Doing so is meant to cut off the source of financing for much of Russia’s military actions.
UK defence secretary John Healey has refused to clarify how many British troops could be sent to Ukraine to support peacekeeping operations.
The UK and France committed to deploy forces in the war-town country in the event of a peace deal with Russia, in a joint declaration signed on 6 January.
Mr Healey was asked by shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge to confirm the number of troops pledged by the UK, but said he was “simply not” going to get into the details of the deployment, which he said would only “make Putin wiser”.
A race to restore power is ongoing in Ukraine in Ukraine on Thursday after Russian strikes plunged two southeastern regions into near-total blackout overnight, forcing critical infrastructure to rely on reserves.
Ukrainian deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said repairs were still ongoing to return heat and water supplies to more than 1 million consumers in the industrialised region of Dnipropetrovsk.
The region is set to see temperatures plummet below freezing in the coming days, with a cold snap set to bring harsh conditions for residents, including thousands of vulnerable and elderly.
The energy ministry said nearly 800,000 consumers in the region remained without electricity early on Thursday but that power had been restored to the other affected region, Zaporizhzhia.
Zaporizhzhia governor Ivan Fedorov said it was the first time in “recent years” that his region had faced a total blackout, but that officials had been quick to respond.
“A difficult night for the region. But ‘light’ always wins,” he wrote on Telegram on Thursday.
At least three people have been killed in Russian attacks on the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, Ukrainian authorities have said.
Seven were also injured in the attacks, which came during a large overnight air attack. The Zaporizhzhia military administration said Russia had conducted 698 attacks against 30 settlements over the past day, including 11 air strikes and 412 drone attacks of various types.
Russian forces targeted critical and social infrastructure alongside residential areas, they said according to Ukrainska Pravda.
We’ve just received an update from Ukraine’s energy ministry, following a huge overnight attack which has cut off electricity to huge swathes of eastern Ukraine.
The ministry has said that nearly 800,000 consumers were without power in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region after Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.
In a statement, it added that eight mines in the region had faced blackouts but that workers had been evacuated.
Dnipro mayor Boris Filatov said: “Technically speaking, the situation in Dnipro is one of the most difficult. This is actually a national emergency. Since last night, the city has been working through all the necessary procedures. We are in constant contact with the oblast [regional] military administration and all relevant ministries and services.”
Volodymyr Zelensky says he is close to agreeing a deal on security guarantees with Donald Trump.
But while Mr Zelensky has said that the framework of a peace deal is 90 per cent agreed with the US, he said thorny issues remain.
This includes around control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as well as Russian demands on Kyiv to cede a strategically significant slice of territory in eastern Ukraine that Moscow has been unable to capture in almost four years of war.
“We understand that the American side will engage with Russia, and we expect feedback on whether the aggressor is genuinely willing to end the war,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.
He said the teams also discussed documents dealing with Ukraine’s post-war recovery and economic development.
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