Ukraine resumes Russian refinery strikes, defying Trump

Ukraine is attacking Russian oil refineries again. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv's patience had run out after a three-day pause that it had kept at Washington's request, while Russia went on bombarding Ukraine's power grid. "The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We're done," Zelensky told the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday, Oct. 15, Reuters reported.nytimes.com

The interview shows how far relations between Kyiv and the Trump administration have fallen. Ukrainian drones hit a refinery in Russia's Ryazan region early Thursday, and the Ryazan governor said it caught fire, NPR reported. The New York Times said Zelensky's comments reflect a widespread feeling in Ukraine that the Trump administration has betrayed it.nytimes.com+1

Intelligence and Starlink

President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine on Oct. 11 without warning Kyiv, according to the Kyiv Independent. Trump had blamed Ukraine's refinery strikes for pushing up global diesel prices, Reuters reported. Zelensky said US military officials warned their Ukrainian counterparts that intelligence sharing would stop if the strikes continued, according to The New York Times.nytimes.com+2

Ukraine paused the strikes anyway. Even so, Ukrainian officials said they had received no US early warnings of Russian ballistic missiles in recent days, and that the military version of Starlink had been slowed across the country, according to Reuters. Kyiv was told the slowdown was a technical glitch. Zelensky rejected that explanation: "It was not a technical problem, it was the will."reuters.com

Over the night of Oct. 13–14, Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones at energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast and Kharkiv, leaving 600,000 people without power, Zelensky said, according to the Kyiv Independent.kyivindependent.com

Price of another pause

Asked whether he would halt energy strikes again to repair ties with the White House, Zelensky said he would only do so in exchange for more US-made Patriot interceptors, which he called the "minimum" (BBC). He also warned that a pause could encourage more deals between Washington and Moscow: "Maybe it will be gas. Definitely it will be gas," he said, as quoted by the Kyiv Independent.bbc.co.uk+1

Kremlin response

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow never believed Kyiv had honored the ceasefire, and called the latest refinery strike "nothing new" (The Financial Express). He said Kyiv was "coming into serious contradiction with the peace efforts of the United States," and added that those efforts "have been thwarted by the unwillingness of the Kyiv regime – and of (President Volodymyr) Zelensky personally – to make peace."thefinancialexpress.com.bd