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Ukraine has resumed its attacks on Russian refineries with a strike at an installation in the Ryazan region, the regional governor said Thursday, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy voiced his anger at the withdrawal of U.S. intelligence.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement of an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv had refrained from attacking Russian refineries, which the U.S. leader had blamed for raising diesel prices on global markets.
But Zelenskyy had voiced increasing frustration with Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which on Wednesday had left 600,000 people without power, he said. He warned that Ukraine would not suspend its own attacks indefinitely if Russia did not reciprocate and also criticized what he said was Trump’s favouritism toward Russia.
In an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday, he said Ukraine’s patience had run out. “The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done.”
Pavel Malkov, the governor of Russia’s Ryazan region, said in a post on Telegram that a major Ukrainian drone attack on the area had sparked a fire at an oil refinery.
“The material damage is now being assessed. Emergency services are working at the scene,” he said.
The Ryazan refinery is owned by Russian oil giant Rosneft and feeds Moscow with fuel. It has been attacked several times by drones in recent months. The refinery accounts for almost five per cent of Russia’s total oil refining throughput.
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No European alternative to Starlink
In his interview, Zelenskyy criticized Washington’s eagerness to strike business deals with Moscow and Trump’s apparent admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Trump on Saturday called for Ukraine to replace Zelenskyy and railed against Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, one day after announcing a diesel supply deal with Russia, aiming to lower fuel prices that have soared since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began in February.
Ukraine says restrictions on the military version of Starlink have disrupted its defence capabilities against Russia and prompted questions about whether changes to Elon Musk’s SpaceX internet service were politically motivated.
Despite Ukraine’s suspension of refinery attacks for three days, Ukrainian officials complained that they had not received any U.S. early-warning alerts in recent days for incoming Russian ballistic missiles.
They also said the military version of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communications service had been slowed across the country, hampering front-line operations and medium-range strikes against Russian military sites.
Musk said Wednesday in a post on X that Starshield — the military version of Starlink — was owned and controlled by the U.S. government, which decided on any limits on speed.
Zelenskyy has said that Ukrainian military officials were warned by their U.S. counterparts that Washington would block intelligence unless they halted strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.
In the FT interview, Zelenskyy said the suspension was presented to Kyiv as a technical glitch, but he dismissed that possibility, calling it a matter of “will.”
Europe does not have a ready-made alternative to Starlink that Ukrainian soldiers could attach to their drones, although European governments and companies are working on long-term options.
Asked whether Ukraine would be open to halting energy strikes as a way of repairing relations with the White House, Zelenskyy told the newspaper he could only agree if in return he was given more U.S.-made Patriot interceptors, calling it the “minimum” that would be acceptable.
Trump has had a contentious relationship with Ukraine’s president, dating back to 2019 when he was impeached by the Democrat-led U.S. House of Representatives for pressuring Zelenskyy for a political favour in exchange for military aid for Ukraine. Trump was acquitted in the U.S. Senate.
Trump has also been highly critical of the amount of military and humanitarian aid given to Ukraine by Joe Biden’s presidential administration after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
3 killed in central Ukraine
Ukraine’s air force said 580 Russian drones attacked the country overnight, with 536 shot down.
The central Ukrainian region of Kirovohrad was hit by the largest Russian attack on its territory during the war, killing three people and wounding another six overnight, the local governor said Thursday.
Firefighters work at the site of an enterprise hit by a Russian drone strike on Thursday in Kropyvnytskyi. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters)
The region, a relatively infrequent target of bombardment, was hit by more than 360 drones, local governor Andriy Raikovych wrote on Telegram.
“The enemy deliberately hit critical infrastructure, transport enterprises, logistics facilities and residential homes,” he wrote.
Russia also hit Ukraine’s Naftogaz gas-extraction facility in the central Poltava region overnight, the company said.
It said in a statement on Telegram that the attack suspended the operations, damaged equipment and caused a fire.
Ukraine’s military said Thursday it had damaged six Russian Su-34M military aircraft in an overnight strike on the Borisoglebsk airfield in Russia’s Voronezh region. The Su-34M is a large fighter-bomber, costing tens of millions of dollars apiece and frequently used by Russia to drop devastating glide bombs onto Ukrainian cities near the front line.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
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