CBC News Barbados

By Maria Kostenko and Christian Edwards, CNN (CNN) — Ukrainian drones struck deep inside Russia in an overnight attack targeting an oil facility serving a military airfield in the city of Engels, nearly 400 miles from the border, Ukraine’s military said Wednesday. Ukrainian officials reported a huge fire at the Kombinat Kristall oil depot, which provides fuel to the Engels-2 military airfield in the Saratov region, where Russia’s strategic bomber fleet is located. Images geolocated by CNN showed large balls of flames lighting up the night sky and plumes of smoke continuing to billow from the site on Wednesday morning. “The destruction of the oil depot raises major logistic challenges for the strategic aviation of the Russian occupiers and significantly reduces their ability to strike at peaceful Ukrainian cities and civilian objects,” Ukraine’s military said. Long-range drone strikes have played a prominent role over nearly three years of war between Russia and Ukraine. As land warfare has become more attritional, Kyiv has increasingly taken the battle to the skies and enjoyed considerable success, seeking to disrupt Russian logistics, damage its weapons stockpiles and set its oil facilities ablaze. Wednesday’s attack is not the first time Ukraine has targeted Saratov, the main city of which lies more than 600 kilometers (375 miles) from the Ukrainian border, although Russian air defenses had mostly thwarted previous attacks. Regional governor Roman Busargin confirmed that the cities of Saratov and Engels suffered a “massive” drone attack overnight, which he said had caused damage at an industrial site. Ukraine’s military said this site was the oil depot at the Engels-2 airfield. Russia’s defense ministry said its air defenses had intercepted 23 Ukrainian drones in the overnight attack, including 11 drones over Saratov and four over the Kursk region – where Ukraine has renewed its counterattack after snatching a large pocket of Russian territory last summer. The ministry did not say how many Ukrainian drones evaded air defenses in Saratov, but Ukraine’s military reported “numerous explosions” in the region. Oleksandr Kamyshin, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the drones used in the long-range attack had been made in Ukraine. Last year, CNN was granted exclusive access to one of Ukraine’s long-range drone units, which operates under Ukraine’s defense intelligence and has conducted hundreds of attacks on Russian soil since the war began in February 2022. Meanwhile, Russia fired 64 drones at targets in Ukraine overnight, according to Ukraine’s air force. It said it had shot down 41 of the drones and that 22 others did not reach their targets. It did not account for the one outstanding drone in its count. The overnight attacks come as both Ukraine and Russia have redoubled their efforts to shift the frontlines, perhaps with a view to the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House and the prospect of peace talks. Trump has previously said he wants to end this war in a day, without saying how. Russia’s defense ministry on Monday said it had captured the eastern town of Kurakhove in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as it circles in on the key strategic city of Pokrovsk. Kyiv has cast doubt on Russia’s claims, however, saying fighting continued in Kurakhove on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ukraine has launched a fresh offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, where it has been holding territory since its shock incursion last summer. Ukraine’s military on Tuesday said it struck a Russian command post near the town of Belaya, as fighting raged on several fronts in the region. The-CNN-Wire & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – A member of the Cabinet-appointed emergency response coordinators in Union Island, is suggesting a night-time curfew be imposed and residents be issued with licensed firearms amidst security concerns six months after Hurricane Beryl caused widespread destruction on the island. Adbon Whyte, who is also a liaison officer from the Ministry of Grenadines Affairs and Local Government to the Southern Grenadines, also floated the idea of ordering the removal of certain people from the island. His suggestions came amidst increased concerns about personal and property security on the island, where a 79-year-old woman is reported to have been raped last month after her assailant cut the tarpaulin on her house. “The authorities have to pay serious attention. And, personally, I will be calling on them to ask persons who are not working, who are not from the island, and just down there loitering, … to probably have them removed from the island. It’s a serious thing,” Whyte said. About 95 per cent of buildings in the Southern Grenadines were destroyed when Hurricane Beryl slammed into the area as a category 4 cyclone on July 1, 2024. The electricity grid on Union Island was extensively damaged and since then, about 250 of the island’s 1,200 houses have been reconnected to the grid. “We just went through one of the biggest traumas in our lifetime, and we should not have to be suffering at the hands of a few…” Whyte said, noting that generally, the people who have gone to Union Island to work after the storm want to make the island their home for a few months as they assist in the rebuilding. “And, these are some of the things that you know we just have to stamp out,” he said, speaking about the crime and other undesirable activities on the island. “So that is a heated topic on the island now,” he said, noting that reconstruction work was expected to ramp up this week after a three-week break for the Christmas holidays. “Those incidents of persons who want to break into people’s houses, and we’ve had an increase in reports of persons knocking on females’ windows, especially if they’re living alone, and those are some of the things that we will be working on seriously,” Whyte said. “We will be having a number of discussions and hopefully we could come up with a plan of action of how we’re going to move forward,” he said, adding that the government could consider installing cameras on the island and increase policing. For their part, residents of Union Island will be engaging in neighbourhood watches “and definitely calling for assistance in identifying persons who would not normally be living on Union Island and they’re not working and figure out a way how we could get them to leave the island. “If you’re not working, there’s no real need for you to be there,” Whyte said, adding that the police are doing “whatever they can.“The police are already stretched, already. And as I said, I’m not trying to make excuses for anybody or anything, but the police, they have been actively involved, they have been pursuing leads, and they’ve been looking into possible suspects.“But we have to remove ourselves from this culture of not informing the police when we see certain things going wrong,” Whyte said, adding that the police in Union Island have a good relationship with the community. “We have an idea of who these persons are. I think we need to act on it quickly, swiftly and really stamp it out. Because there is no need for persons to be behaving like this,” Whyte said, noting that he was especially concerned about the safety of the island’s women. “I could guarantee you, we will be working and having different meetings to discuss the way forward and how we could deal with some of these issues.” He noted that some houses on the island still use generators and turn them off at some point in the night. Whyte said the response coordinators would meet this week “to kind of get a feel of where the community is, the areas that have had these problems, identify them, and identify the pockets of where we believe these persons are liming or they’re harbouring and whether provide lighting in certain areas, even if it may mean implementing a curfew on the island at certain times. And then you have police patrol. “Because what I’m saying, it’s not a normal situation in Union. The good thing now is that we have cell phone connectivity almost all over the island.” Whyte said they do not want a situation where people take things into their own hands, adding that the coordinators are always in touch with Superintendent of Police Samuel, who is responsible for security on the island. “He’s been there right from the beginning. So, he knows the island, he knows the people. And he also brought in a number of officers who would have worked on the island in the past and who have a good knowledge of the island and the people of the island,”  Whyte said, noting  Union Island is generally a safe place.“And we need to identify these persons who are doing these things, and we need to deal with them, have the law deal with them, have them, whether removed from the island by some special order or whatever.” Whyte however, noted that Union Island remains part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and there could be legal implications for attempts to remove people from the island. “But if maybe we could have something like a state of emergency in that area, then you give the police a little bit more freedom to exercise additional powers in terms of investigating and apprehending some of these people, which I think is really needed at this time… “I would really like even the police to look into giving a few persons even licensed firearms so that they can assist the police in patrol. Because I know for sure some of these criminals, they have guns.” Whyte said people might have different views on the firearm suggestion. “But I don’t see people breaking into people’s homes who have licensed firearms. It’s a deterrent and more people sometimes have something to protect — because the police cannot be everywhere.”

By Barbie Latza Nadeau and Rob Picheta, CNN (CNN) — Italian journalist Cecilia Sala has been freed from an Iranian prison and is on a plane home, a spokesperson for the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Wednesday. Sala had been reporting in Iran’s capital when she was “stopped by Tehran police” and detained on December 19, Italy’s foreign ministry said last month. On Wednesday, Meloni’s office said: “The plane that is bringing journalist Cecilia Sala home took off a few minutes ago from Tehran. “Thanks to intense work on diplomatic and intelligence channels, our compatriot has been released by the Iranian authorities and is returning to Italy,” the statement added. Meloni also thanked those who have contributed to Sala’s return possible, “allowing her to embrace her family and colleagues.” “The President personally informed the journalist’s parents during a phone call that took place a few minutes ago,” the prime minister’s office stated. The-CNN-Wire & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.