As US President Donald Trump launched a 100-day effort to end the war in Ukraine, Kyiv’s long-range weapons were devastating the heart of Russia’s war effort – its oil depots, weapons storages and factories.

Trump took the oath of office on Monday, saying success would be measured “not just by the battles that we win, but also by the wars that we end and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into”.

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That was a reference to his oft-stated belief that the administration of his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden, erred in allowing the Ukraine war to begin, and his vow to end it quickly.

Trump’s special envoy, retired US General Keith Kellog, has set himself a 100-day challenge to achieve a ceasefire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held an unprecedented National Security Council meeting on Trump’s inauguration day, repeating his willingness to enter negotiations. He said a solution should remove the root causes of the war – a reference to NATO’s eastward expansion.

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Sergei Ryabkov, Russian deputy foreign minister, said on Wednesday that the Trump administration presented an opportunity for agreement.

“Compared to the pessimism under the previous US president, today, there is a small chance of opportunities,” he said at an academic event in Moscow.

As these developments of high politics unfolded, Ukraine was smashing through Russian aerial defences and burning some of the enemy’s ability to wage war.

That campaign of strategic interdiction was visibly weakening the Russian war effort, said Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii.

“Over several months now, the normal consumption of artillery ammunition by the Russian army has actually been halved,” he told TSN, a Ukrainian television network.

“If earlier this figure reached 40,000 per day, now it is much lower.

“These strikes reduce the ability of Russian troops to maintain a high intensity of combat operations,” he added.

During the past week, Ukraine scored several hits.

Ukraine’s General Staff said three of their drones hit the Liskinskaya oil depot in the Russian region of Voronezh, engulfing it in flames on January 16.

“This oil depot provides fuel to the Russian military,” they said.

Geolocated footage showed the refinery burning that day.

Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said drones also struck the Tambov Gunpowder Plant in Kuzmino-Gat. The plant produces gunpowder and nitrocellulose for use in rocket systems, artillery shells and other systems, he said.

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On Saturday, Ukraine’s General Staff said Kyiv’s drones struck a petroleum products storage facility in Russia’s Tula region, setting it alight.

The facility supplied Russia’s armed forces, the staff said. Ukrainian drones also struck a Rosneft oil depot in the Kaluga region that supplied the military.

On the same day, saboteurs set fire to a locomotive in St Petersburg, destroying it, said Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service (GUR). The engine was used to ferry war material, the GUR said.

Ukraine has been deploying foot soldiers in its behind-enemy-lines campaign to destroy Russian equipment.

On Trump’s inauguration day, Kovalenko said, Ukrainian drones struck the Gorbunov Aircraft Plant in Kazan.

It is a subsidiary of the Tupolev United Aircraft Corporation, which produces and repairs Tu-160 strategic bombers, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Geolocated footage showed direct hits to fuel tanks at the factory.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said their drones struck the Liskinskaya refinery for the second time in a week.

“Tanks with fuel and lubricants, which the occupiers provide to the Russian troops, are burning,” they said.

They also struck the Smolensk Aviation Plant, “where combat aircraft are also being modernised and produced”, the staff said.

Geolocated footage showed fires at the plant.

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Kovalenko said the plant builds Sukhoi Su-25 bombers, which are used to drop glide bombs on Ukrainian front lines.

The war on the ground

Russia continued to assault Ukrainian defences during the past week, and on Friday succeeded after a year-long effort in capturing the village of Vremivka, on the Donetsk-Zaporizhia border in eastern Ukraine.

Vremivka lies adjacent to Velyka Novosilka, which Ukraine recaptured in a counteroffensive in 2023.

Russia has been keen to recover the position because it offers a vantage point from which to disrupt Ukrainian lines of supply and communication in Donetsk.

A Ukrainian officer said the Russians had a three-to-one numerical advantage in the area, demonstrating Russian priorities.

Russia also appeared to be preparing a major new push to capture Pokrovsk, in Donetsk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine’s push into Kursk has diverted 60,000 of Russia’s most capable personnel from the Ukrainian front to defend Russian turf.

But now, Russia has been amassing units south of Pokrovsk, said Konstantin Mashovets, a retired Ukrainian colonel and military analyst, consolidating elements of four different brigades and three regiments.

The gluing together of disparate units could indicate Russia was making superlative efforts to generate these forces.

“Now south of Pokrovsk there is a rather peculiar strike group of the enemy, which is a kind of mixture of units and formations of two armies at once,” said Mashovets.

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“Thanks to all these measures, by concentrating its combat-ready units and formations on a fairly narrow section of the front line, the enemy has received and now has a significant superiority in forces.”

Major Victor Tregubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsia unit defending Pokrovsk, said Russian forces were trying to do an end run around the city because they lacked the manpower to tackle it head-on.

“To do this, they need to go west of the city, which they are currently trying to do,” Tregubov told a television channel.

Syrskii told a webcast that the best Russian units were concentrated in Pokrovsk, signalling that this was the top Russian priority.

He also revised upwardly earlier estimates of Russian casualties last year, saying 434,000 of Moscow’s troops had been killed or wounded in 2024, with an estimated 150,000 killed.