Day 698 of the Invasion of Ukraine: Kyiv Admits Hitting Russia‘s Biggest Liquefied Natural Gas Producer

Day 698 of the invasion of Ukraine. Summary of key events in the last 24 hours:

• At least 8 drones were neutralized by the Ukrainian forces last night
• The Russian gas terminal hit by Ukrainian drones stopped working
• The Kremlin has announced that it will confiscate 8 billion in Western investments
• Lavrov arrived in New York to participate in meetings of the UN Security Council

At least 8 drones were neutralized by the Ukrainian forces last night

At least 8 drones were neutralized by the Ukrainian forces last night. The districts of Mykolaiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovograd were attacked.

There is no information about casualties and material damage. Kyiv reacted to Moscow's accusations of shelling a market in Donetsk, which is under Russian control.

25 people died in the attack. The Facebook page of the units in charge of the area said they were not engaged in hostilities and that Donetsk was Ukrainian territory.

In his midnight address, President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences to the victims' relatives, but stressed that Russia had attacked more than 100 settlements in 9 regions in just one day.

The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs - Serey Lavrov, arrived in New York, where he will participate in the meetings of the UN Security Council, with Ukraine and the Middle East among the main topics.

The Russian gas terminal hit by Ukrainian drones stopped working

Russia's biggest liquefied natural gas producer Novatek said it was forced to suspend some activities at its huge Ust Luga terminal on the Baltic Sea due to a fire, Reuters reported.

According to Ukrainian media, the fire was caused by Kyiv’s drones.

The giant complex, located on the Gulf of Finland near St. Petersburg, is used to transport oil and gas products to international markets. According to Novatek's website, it processes stable gas condensate into light and heavy naphtha, jet fuel, fuel oil and gas oil.

It is not known how long the outage will last, how many tankers will have to wait at the port and how it will affect international energy markets, Reuters notes.

The fire was the result of a special operation by the security services of Ukraine, Interfax-Ukraine claimed, citing anonymous sources.

"The Ust-Luga oil terminal is an important object for the enemy. Fuel is also refined there, which is supplied to the Russian troops. A successful attack on such a terminal not only causes economic damage to the enemy, depriving the occupiers of the opportunity to earn money to wage war in Ukraine, but also significantly complicates the logistics of fuel for the Russian army," commented one of the sources.

Reuters said it could not confirm that the fire was the result of a Ukrainian drone attack. If true, it would demonstrate Kyiv's ability to strike deeper into Russia than usual, possibly using Ukrainian-made drones, at a time when the country is on the defensive on the battlefield and struggling to secure more Western funding. the agency notes.

According to Russian media, two storage tanks and a pumping station were damaged, but the fire was brought under control. No one was injured and all workers were evacuated, reported the administration of the Leningrad Region.

The Kremlin has announced that it will confiscate 8 billion in Western investments

Russia has announced that it plans to freeze all Western direct investment in response to the West using Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine. In response to Russia's attack on Ukraine, the West has already frozen more than 0 billion in Russian state assets. The US and Great Britain even want to use this money to rebuild Ukraine. Now Russia is threatening the West: "We can also confiscate your money."

"Russia has promised a mirror response to the confiscation of central bank reserves by Western countries," the RIA news agency reported on Sunday. According to her, the amount of Western assets amounts to at least 288 billion US dollars.

The agency calculated this based on the countries' national statistics.

The billions are direct investments in companies from the European Union, the G-7 countries, Australia and Switzerland. Unlike Russian assets, this is not necessarily about state property, but money from private investors and companies.

According to Russian calculations, most of the money comes from the EU and amounts to 223.3 billion US dollars. Of these, 17.3 billion are from Germany. Only Cyprus with USD 98.3 billion and the Netherlands with USD 50.1 billion have a larger share.

The fourth and fifth largest European investors are France (US.6 billion) and Italy (US.9 billion). Among the G7 countries, the United Kingdom is one of the largest investors in Russia, with 18.9 billion US dollars.

Lavrov arrived in New York to participate in meetings of the UN Security Council

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived in New York, where he will participate in UN Security Council meetings dedicated to the Middle East and Ukraine, TASS reported.

As reported by a correspondent of the agency, Lavrov's plane traveled the distance from Moscow to the United States on the northern route, flying over "enemy countries", in 12 hours and 45 minutes. No unforeseen circumstances occurred during the flight.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS that Lavrov will be in New York from January 22 to 24 to personally participate in the UN Security Council debates on the Middle East and a meeting on Ukraine. A number of bilateral meetings are also expected.

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