Lukoil’s Burgas plant is Bulgaria’s only refinery; Slovakia running out of reasons to buy Russian gas as US import deal takes shape. What we know on day 1,352

Bulgaria is preparing to seize control of Lukoil’s Burgas oil refinery and sell it to a new owner after the Russian oil company came under US sanctions , according to Bulgarian media reports. Burgas is Bulgaria’s only oil refinery and as part of Lukoil is at risk of having to shut down because of the sanctions. The US joined Britain last month in imposing sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, over Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Legislation was being drafted to allow the seizure, Bulgarian outlet Mediapool reported on Wednesday. Lukoil said last week that it was moving to sell foreign assets because of the sanctions.

With international action progressively choking off Russia’s petroleum exports, Poland said on Wednesday that it was working on a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the US to supply Ukraine and Slovakia . Officials expect to announce a joint declaration to boost imports after a meeting of the parties at a transatlantic energy conference in Athens later this week, Reuters cited a source as saying. The Polish energy ministry told Reuters late on Wednesday: “We are working with our partners – Americans, Slovaks, Ukrainians – on the possibilities of importing American gas to boost the energy security of our region.”

Slovakia’s Putin-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, has objected to EU restrictions on Russian gas imports . Reuters said that according to its sources, as much as 4bn-5bn cubic metres of US gas per year could be shipped by southern Poland to Slovakia – about the same as Slovakia’s annual consumption. The EU in October put forward new plans to end its purchases of Russian oil and gas with a fresh package of sanctions that bans Russian LNG imports by 2027.

Moscow’s forces appear to be tightening their grip on Pokrovsk , Pjotr Sauer reports, with street fighting raging across the ruined city in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s general staff on Wednesday denied Russian claims that its troops had been encircled, saying efforts were under way to reinforce the flanks around Pokrovsk and the nearby town of Myrnohrad.

Artem Karyakin, a well-known soldier in the Ukrainian armed forces, posted that Russian troops were “present in every district of the city”. “There is no good news from there; the situation remains tense. While Russian forces have not yet fully taken control of the city, fighting is ongoing.” Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, which monitors the war, posted: “Ukraine may be repeating a costly mistake in Pokrovsk … seen for example in Vuhledar and Kursk – a reluctance to conduct a controlled, militarily justified withdrawal from a threatened salient when the situation no longer favours the defender.”

Angelina Jolie has made a surprise visit to Kherson, according to media reports. The frontline city lies on the other side of the Dnieper river from the Russian army. It would be the US actor’s second visit to Ukraine since the Russian full-scale invasion of February 2022. According to local reporting, Jolie visited a maternity ward and a children’s hospital in Kherson, which was briefly occupied by Russian forces in 2022 and still comes under daily Russian bombardment. A photo published by local official Vitaly Bogdanov showed Jolie wearing a bulletproof vest with Ukrainian insignia. Photographs circulating online were also said to show Jolie making a visit to Mykolaiv, to the north-west of Kherson. Neither Jolie nor the Ukrainian government confirmed the visit.