Says Russia, air defence downs 41 Ukrainian drones

A Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at Russia's Azov Sea port of Temryuk, the local emergencies centre said yesterday.

Temryuk handles liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), oil products and petrochemicals, as well as grain and other bulk food commodities.

"There was a fire... Special and emergency services are working on site," the emergencies centre said in a statement on Telegram.

Two industry sources told Reuters that the fire broke out at the Maktren-Nafta LPG transshipment terminal, which loads LPG from Russian and Kazakh producers for export.

In the first 10 months of 2025, the terminal handled about 220,000 tonnes of LPG, traders said.

The Russian Defence Ministry said air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 41 Ukrainian drones overnight, including one over the Krasnodar region where Temryuk is located.

The Kremlin said yesterday that Russia and the United States were making progress in peace talks on Ukraine and that Moscow was ready to continue working with the current US team.

President Vladimir Putin held five hours of talks with two US envoys on Tuesday night, at which the Kremlin has said he accepted some elements, but not others, of a US-drafted peace plan.

Putin subsequently restated Russia's demand for full control over Ukraine's Donbas region, saying Moscow would take the region by force unless Ukrainian troops withdrew.

US President Donald Trump, whose efforts to end the war have so far failed to produce a breakthrough, has said this week's meeting was "reasonably good" but that the path ahead remained unclear.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in Tuesday's talks, told the Zvezda news outlet yesterday: "We are, in my opinion, making progress on the main negotiations involving our president. This is encouraging, and we are ready to continue working with this American team."

State news agency RIA quoted Ushakov as saying the Kremlin was awaiting "the reaction of our American colleagues" to Tuesday's talks.