A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery inside Russia on Thursday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was “done” with an energy ceasefire that was announced by President Trump on Sunday.
While there was never any real truce agreement between the two sides, Ukraine did appear to refrain from hitting Russian refineries for a few days as its massive drone attacks inside Russia continued. “The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We’re done,” Zelensky told the Financial Times.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia didn’t perceive that Ukraine ever halted the attacks on energy targets. Russia has also continued to pummel energy infrastructure inside Ukraine following Trump’s announcement.
Russian media reported that a Ukrainian drone attack on Thursday sparked a fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s Ryazan Region. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces shot down 166 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions overnight.
So far, there’s been no comment from President Trump or other US officials on Ukraine’s attack on a Russian oil refinery. The US has reportedly been threatening to cut intelligence and weapons shipments to Ukraine if the attacks don’t stop, though the strikes on refineries deep inside Russia are known to be supported by US intelligence and may not be possible without it.
Zelensky said he believed a reduction in the capability of the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink, known as Starshield, that impacted Ukrainian drone operations this week was an intentional move by the US, not a technical issue, though the satellite systems have since been fully restored. “It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he said.
Russia is leaning into the idea of a split between Trump and Zelensky, with Peskov saying that Ukraine’s continued attacks on Russian energy targets are “coming into serious contradiction with the peace efforts of the United States and of the American negotiators who are indeed making very vigorous efforts to somehow initiate the peace process.”
