Ukraine and Russia continued targeting energy infrastructure in attacks on Tuesday despite President Trump claiming a day earlier that the two sides had agreed to halt such strikes.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Trump’s suggestion was a “good idea” but said that, overnight, the “Ukrainians attempted to strike one of the energy facilities on Russian territory, in one of the Russian regions.”
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces struck an oil refinery in Syzran, western Russia, an attack that he framed as a response to Russia continuing to target energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s emergency service said that Russian strikes on Kyiv included attacks on gas stations and that at least one person was killed in the Ukrainian capital.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces intercepted a total of 222 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions overnight.
While President Trump has called for Ukraine to halt its attacks on Russia’s “diesel fuel” and other energy sites, the attacks are known to be supported by US intelligence, meaning they will likely continue until the US cuts off that support. Trump has tried to shift the blame for the rising energy prices from his war with Iran to the war in Ukraine, though it was his administration that decided to back Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries last year.
The Kremlin also disputed the idea that the attacks on Russian oil refineries were the reason for rising prices, saying it was more related to the sanctions on Russia and attacks on tankers.
“Of course, we need to lift the sanctions, these illegal restrictions on energy supplies to the world. And only then will the world be saturated with these petroleum products, global markets will be saturated, and prices will go down,” Peskov said.
“And you know that not only our oil tankers are suffering, but also those belonging to other countries. And people of various nationalities are dying there,” the Russian spokesman added.
