Ukraine has resumed attacks on Russian oil refineries, despite pressure from Donald Trump ahead of the US mid-term elections, with a ceasefire in the occupied town of Oleshky due to end on Sunday evening.
Russian state media said Sunday that long-range Ukrainian drones set fire to the Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod oblast overnight, shortly after a major strike on another major refinery in Samara oblast, owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukraine had given in to pressure from the White House to stop bombing Russian energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian officials, however, told the Kyiv Independent newspaper that they never agreed to a request from Jared Kushner, the US president’s son-in-law, to suspend refinery strikes for 30 days. Raids against Russia resumed on Friday, Kremlin officials said, complaining that kyiv is “simply ignoring” the wishes of the United States.
Trump has blamed rising global fuel prices on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and last month lifted U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel.
Zelensky did not acknowledge the latest attacks on refineries, in an apparent attempt to avoid US retaliation. Instead, he said his armed forces struck a defense industry company in Russia’s Rostov region that manufactured missiles. A Pantsir missile system was destroyed, he said, as part of ongoing “long-range sanctions” against Ukraine.
Zelensky said his country was forced to retaliate because of Moscow’s ruthless campaign, using drones and ballistic missiles, against vulnerable city-based energy facilities. Four Ukrainian regions were hit by Russia overnight, causing power cuts to hundreds of thousands of homes.
“The intensity of the strikes is very high and the Russians are seeking to exploit the deficit of ballistic missile interceptors as much as possible,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. kyiv experienced power outages lasting eight to ten hours on Sunday after a critical thermal power plant was damaged.
Zelensky said Russia was suffering record losses, with 54,400 military personnel killed and wounded in October – the highest monthly figure since the start of the full-scale war. He said Ukraine had reconquered 96.2 km² (37 square miles) of its territory last month, 10.4 km² (4 square miles) more than Moscow managed to conquer, and stressed: “Russia is losing.”
The latest attacks came as a six-day local ceasefire brokered by US first lady Melania Trump was set to end in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky. Hundreds of residents were reunited with their loved ones over the weekend in northern Ukraine, with both sides hailing the evacuation mission as a success.
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Ukrainian observers say the Russian army took advantage of the truce to strengthen its positions and exchange hungry and exhausted troops garrisoned in Oleskhy. The city is located on the left bank of the Dnipro, in the east, and faces the larger city of Kherson, which Ukraine reconquered in the fall of 2022. A new Russian attack is inevitable, observers believe.
The pope said Sunday he hoped cooperation between Russia and Ukraine in implementing the Oleshky ceasefire — the largest since 2022 — would pave the way for broader peace efforts.
“I hope that the cooperation between the parties, which made this necessary humanitarian gesture possible, will strengthen their willingness to engage in dialogue,” he said during his Sunday prayer.
Trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States are expected to take place later this month, with Kremlin officials saying on Sunday that Vladimir Putin was willing to speak directly with Zelensky by telephone. They added that European leaders who support Ukraine should not be involved in such a call.
There is, however, little chance of a broader breakthrough, as the Russian president’s maximalist demands remain unchanged. He insists that Ukraine abandon the entire eastern Donetsk oblast – which Russia has failed to capture since 2014 – as well as other territories in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces that the Kremlin does not control, but says it has “annexed”.
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