Russia and Ukraine: 1) How the West is helping Russia to fund its war on Ukraine; 2) Ukraine says Russia launched its biggest drone attack yet, part of an escalating campaign

1) How the West is helping Russia to fund its war on Ukraine

Vitaly Shevchenko, Russia editor, BBC Monitoring

Courtesy BBC

Russia has continued to make billions from fossil fuel exports to the West, data shows, helping to finance its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – now in its fourth year.

Since the start of that invasion in February 2022, Russia has made more than three times as much money by exporting hydrocarbons than Ukraine has received in aid allocated by its allies.

Data analysed by the BBC show that Ukraine’s Western allies have paid Russia more for its hydrocarbons than they have given Ukraine in aid.

Campaigners say governments in Europe and North America need to do more to stop Russian oil and gas from fuelling the war with Ukraine.

How much is Russia still making?

Proceeds made from selling oil and gas are key to keeping Russia’s war machine going.

Oil and gas account for almost a third of Russia’s state revenue and more than 60% of its exports.

In the wake of the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine’s allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. The US and UK banned Russian oil and gas, while the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, but not gas.

Despite this, by 29 May, Russia had made more than €883bn ($973bn; £740bn) in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of the full-scale invasion, including €228bn from the sanctioning countries, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).

The lion’s share of that amount, €209bn, came from EU member states.

EU states continued importing pipeline gas directly from Russia until Ukraine cut the transit in January 2025, and Russian crude oil is still piped to Hungary and Slovakia.

Russian gas is still piped to Europe in increasing quantities via Turkey: CREA’s data shows that its volume rose by 26.77% in January and February 2025 over the same period in 2024.

Hungary and Slovakia are also still receiving Russian pipeline gas via Turkey.

Russian Fossil Fuel Revenue Outstrips Aid to Ukraine – see link below

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/23441197/embed?auto=

2) Ukraine says Russia launched its biggest drone attack yet, part of an escalating campaign

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Illia Novikov And Volodymyr Yurchuk, May 26, 2025

Russia launched its biggest drone attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Monday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war.

On the third straight night of significant aerial bombardments, U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying he had gone “crazy” by stepping up attacks on Ukraine.

The expansion of Russia’s air campaign appeared to be another setback U.S.-led peace efforts, as Putin looks determined to capture more Ukrainian territory and inflict more damage. It comes after Kyiv accepted an unconditional 30-day ceasefire in March that was proposed by the U.S. but that Moscow effectively rejected.

This month alone, Russia has broken its record for aerial bombardments of Ukraine three times.

Russia is also still pushing along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where it has made slow and costly progress, and is assembling its forces for a summer offensive, analysts say.

“Only a sense of complete impunity can allow Russia to carry out such attacks and continually escalate their scale,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram on Monday. “There is no significant military logic to this, but there is considerable political meaning.”

A spate of large bombardments

The Russian bombardment on Sunday night included 355 drones, Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian air force’s communications department, told The Associated Press, calling it the biggest of the war.

The previous night, Russia fired 298 drones and 69 missiles in what Ukrainian officials said was the largest combined aerial assault of the conflict. From Friday to Sunday, Russia launched around 900 drones at Ukraine, officials said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Monday that its forces shot down 103 Ukrainian drones overnight that were flying over southern and western Russia, including near Moscow. Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said 32 flights scheduled to land at three Moscow airports on Sunday and Monday had to divert amid Ukrainian drone attacks.

The numbers from Ukraine and Russia could not be independently verified.

Soon after Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, the conflict became a testing ground for increasingly sophisticated drone warfare. Drones are generally cheaper to produce than missiles.

Russia has received Iranian-made Shahed drones since 2022 and is now believed to be manufacturing its own version. Ukraine, as well as receiving smaller battlefield drones from its allies to help it compensate for a troop shortage, has developed its own long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that there are “no longer any range restrictions for weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine — neither by the British, nor by the French or by us, and not by the Americans either.”

“That means Ukraine can also defend itself by, for example, attacking military positions in Russia. Until a while ago, it couldn’t … it can now,” he said.

It was not clear if Merz was referring to the easing of restrictions on longer-range weapons late last year. Before becoming chancellor, Merz called for Germany to supply Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv, something his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, refused to do.

Europeans threaten sanctions

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said the latest Russian bombardments “show the extent to which President Putin has lied to the Europeans and to the Americans.”

He told reporters while on a visit to Vietnam that Ukraine’s allies should, with U.S. support, set Putin a deadline “so that finally everyone can understand that he is lying and that beyond this deadline, massive retaliation is carried out, in particular in terms of sanctions.”

The European Union’s top diplomat, foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, also said the bloc intended to impose more sanctions on Moscow, calling Russia’s latest attacks as “totally appalling.”

Trump has threatened massive sanctions, too, but so far hasn’t taken action. But he made it clear Sunday night that he is losing patience with Putin.

“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Trump said Putin is “needlessly killing a lot of people,” pointing out that “missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.”

The U.S. president also expressed frustration with Zelenskyy, saying that he is “doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin makes decisions that are necessary to ensure Russia’s security and that the attacks were Moscow’s response to deep strikes by Ukraine.

He said negotiations are at “a decisive moment that is linked to emotional overloading for everyone and emotional reactions.”

Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds more prisoners Sunday in the third and last part of a major exchange. All told, each side released more than 1,000 prisoners — soldiers and civilians — in the biggest swap of the war.

___ Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, John Leicester in Paris and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed.