Ukrainian drones attacked the Orenburg gas processing plant, the world's largest facility of its kind, and damaged part of it but no employees were hurt in the attack, the region's governor said yesterday.

The governor, Yevgeny Solntsev, said on his official Telegram channel that the drone strike had caused a fire to break out at a workshop at the plant which emergency services were working to put out.

It is the first time that the plant, part of the Orenburg gas chemical complex, which includes Gazprom's production and processing facilities in the Orenburg region with an annual capacity of 45 billion cubic metres of gas, has been reported to have been hit.

The plant processes gas condensate from the Orenburg oil and gas condensate field, as well as from Kazakhstan's Karachaganak field, reports Reuters.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday urged allies against appeasing Russia, in a statement after he returned from a trip to the United States where he failed to secure long-range Tomahawk missile supplies.

Zelensky came to Washington after weeks of calls for Tomahawks, hoping to capitalise on US President Donald Trump's growing frustration with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after a summit in Alaska failed to produce a breakthrough.

But the Ukrainian left empty-handed as Trump eyes a fresh diplomatic breakthrough on the back of last week's Gaza peace deal.

"Ukraine will never grant terrorists any bounty for their crimes, and we count on our partners to uphold this very position," Zelensky wrote on social media on his return from Washington. He called "for decisive steps" from European and American allies.

Trump has appeared far more upbeat about the prospects of a deal since a lengthy call Thursday with Putin, in which they agreed to meet soon in Budapest.

After meeting with Zelensky at the White House, Trump said on social media that their talks were "very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL!" 

Russia's Defence Ministry said yesterday that Russian forces had pushed Ukrainian forces out of the settlements of Chunyshyne in the Donetsk region and of Poltavka in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Russian forces had also destroyed a US-made Himars rocket launcher system in Ukraine's Chernihiv region using an "Iskander-M" missile, the ministry said.