A car bomb in the Moscow region killed a general in charge of heavy ammunition supplies for the Russian army, reports said. The car exploded in Balashikha, killing its driver. He was named in reports as Damir Davydov, head of the Russian defence ministry’s missile and artillery wing. A second car bomb was discovered and blown up by authorities in southwest Moscow, reports said. Throughout the war several audacious assassinations have taken place of senior figures involved in Moscow’s war effort, with Ukrainian security services either claiming responsibility or being blamed by Russian authorities. Disruptions to fuel supplies have triggered panic-buying in Russia’s Krasnodar region, the governor said, as Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure continued to hit fuel deliveries across several southern regions and Russian-held Crimea. On Tuesday, emergency services said they had finally extinguished an oil depot fire in the town of Ust-Labinsk in Krasnodar after a Ukrainian drone attack on Saturday. “Against the backdrop of a difficult situation in neighbouring regions, many people decided to stock up on gasoline, which caused artificial panic buying,” said the governor, Veniamin Kondratyev. In Russia’s southern Rostov region, the governor said a Ukrainian drone attack started a fire in a fuel tank. Yuri Slyusar said the drone attack took place in the region’s Millerovsky district, just over the Ukrainian border. In Russia’s Dagestan region, explosions shook the town of Kizilyurt as a gas pipeline blew up. Kizilyurt’s mayor’s office said the fire was believed to have engulfed a gas distribution station, Interfax reported. The city of Novokuibyshevsk in Russia’s Samara region was under drone attack in the early hours of Wednesday, said the regional governor. Russian state oil company Rosneft runs the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in the area. Elsewhere, the EU hopes to ban Russian soldiers from entering member states as part of further sanctions that also target banks, crypto firms and the Kremlin’s oil revenues.The EU also intends to ban the import of Russian metals, ores and car parts worth €60m as part of continuing attempt to restrict economic ties. EU export restrictions are proposed for metals and alloys used in the aerospace and defence industries, including drone equipment and launch systems. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also confirmed the decision to move ahead with Ukraine’s negotiations to join the EU. The bloc is expected to open the first set of negotiating chapters – on the rule of law and democratic standards – in accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova next week. Ukraine is “making extraordinary progress” on reforms to allow it to join the EU and that “it’s high time for us also now to deliver,” said von der Leyen. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Nordic and Baltic leaders in Estonia on Tuesday, a visit that comes after Ukrainian drones were diverted into their countries by Russian electronic warfare in recent months. Zelenskiy promised to help with low-cost defences against drones. “We did this in the Middle East, and it worked,” he said. – Guardian