Russia Accuses Ukraine of Attacking Oil Refinery After Zelensky Says Strikes to Resume

Ukraine is "done" holding back. In an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that a three-day Ukrainian pause on striking Russian oil refineries — observed at Washington's request — was over, because Russia had never stopped hitting Ukraine's own energy infrastructure.

"The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We're done," Zelensky said.

Within hours, Moscow accused Kyiv of launching a large-scale drone and missile attack on an oil refinery in the Ryazan region, about 180 kilometres south-east of Moscow. Russia's defence ministry said four missiles and dozens of drones were intercepted, but falling debris started a fire at the site. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking anonymously, confirmed that Ukraine had hit the refinery.

The strike marks the collapse of an "energy ceasefire" that was never really a ceasefire at all — and it has opened the deepest rift between Kyiv and Washington since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022.

The Ryazan strike

The refinery in the Ryazan region is owned by Russian oil major Rosneft and plays a significant role in supplying fuel to Moscow. It accounts for almost 5 per cent of Russia's total oil refining throughput and has been attacked by Ukrainian drones several times in recent months, according to Reuters.

A large oil refinery with distillation towers, similar to the Rosneft facility in Ryazan Credit: Sgroey / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Regional governor Pavel Malkov said on Telegram that a major Ukrainian drone attack had caused the fire, adding that the material damage was being assessed and emergency services were working at the scene. He said a warehouse elsewhere in the region was also damaged, and classes in schools and kindergartens in two districts were cancelled because of what he called mass drone attacks.

President Vladimir Putin played down the impact, saying Ukrainian attempts to hit refineries — including alleged attempts on Wednesday, which Ukraine denied — had caused nothing particularly significant. But the Kremlin's political response was sharp. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the strikes ran counter to US peace efforts, telling reporters that Moscow had never perceived Kyiv as complying with the ceasefire and that the latest strike was "nothing new," Reuters reported. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went further, calling Ukraine's strikes on oil facilities a "direct and crude challenge to President Trump."

A ceasefire that never was

The backdrop to the strike is a week of confusion over what, exactly, the United States and the warring parties had agreed. On Sunday, Trump unilaterally announced an "energy ceasefire" covering attacks on energy infrastructure. Ukraine said it first learned of the announcement from media reports; Russia never publicly committed to it, later arguing that the scope of any ceasefire had never been determined.

Kyiv nevertheless suspended its refinery campaign for three days. But in those same days, Russia rained down missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy targets, including power stations, knocking out electricity for hundreds of thousands of people. Zelensky said dozens of Ukrainian cities had come under Russian attack in the past day alone.

"This politically is not simple [in America], because everybody will want to ask how it can be when some people are surviving, fighting, dying — and you make business with the guys with such aggression," Zelensky told the Financial Times, in a pointed reference to Washington's parallel move: a deal for Russia to export 1.8 million tonnes of diesel to the US and global markets, which the White House says will help reduce soaring fuel prices.

Trump has made no secret of his priority. He blames Ukraine's refinery strikes for raising diesel prices, which have hit record highs, and said over the weekend that the attacks had "damn well better stop." On Thursday he told Newsmax that Kyiv's resumed strikes were "making the world oil price higher," calling the targeting of diesel infrastructure "a disgrace" and "not doing a good service for the world." The politics of fuel prices — and Verity's earlier reporting on the G7's emergency oil release after Trump's export threats and on which war is really driving diesel prices — remain central to the dispute.

The rift with Washington

Beyond the refinery campaign, the week has exposed a raw confrontation between Kyiv and its most important backer. Zelensky accused the United States of withdrawing intelligence-sharing on incoming Russian strikes to pressure him into ending the attacks altogether, and said curbs placed on Starlink satellite services used by Ukraine's military were deliberate.

"It was not a technical problem, it was the will," he told the Financial Times of the Starlink restrictions, which limited the speed at which Ukrainian drones could operate while maintaining a satellite connection. SpaceX chief Elon Musk said on social media that the military version of the system, known as Starshield, is owned and controlled by the US government: "Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS."

Ukrainian defence sources said on Thursday morning that some functionality — Starshield's "operation while on the move" — had been restored, though it remained unclear whether all restrictions had been lifted. Trump denied halting intelligence sharing.

In an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan, Zelensky said he felt betrayed by Trump's diesel deal with Putin, the ceasefire announcement and the Starlink limits. "It's painful when President Trump chooses one side, not our side," he said. Trump, for his part, told Newsmax he was "not a big fan" of the Ukrainian leader: "I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin." He even raised the prospect of elections in Ukraine, which has been under martial law since 2022.

Zelensky said he would be willing to pause strikes on Russian energy sites again — but only if the US supplied Ukraine with additional Patriot air defence interceptors. Trump said the US was acquiring Patriots at record levels to replenish its own stockpiles first.

The dispute is unfolding against the grinding reality of the war on Ukraine's energy grid, which Verity has covered in depth, including Russia's strikes that left Ukrainian cities in blackout.

Europe rallies round Kyiv

As the row with Washington deepened, Zelensky travelled to Brussels for a two-day summit of European leaders, where he met NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte to discuss the energy ceasefire and continued allied support. The day before, he had been in London, where he won pledges of more help from the UK prime minister.

European leaders were blunt. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, asked whether the bloc still trusts Trump, replied: "We definitely have a different approach to this war. We see that we have to pressure the aggressor to stop the war, not the victim to surrender." She added: "Squeezing Ukraine is not the right approach, and that is why Europe is standing beside Ukraine."

Italy's Defence Minister Guido Crosetto warned that US restrictions on intelligence-sharing would be a strategic error, arguing that such support remains fundamental to Ukraine's defence. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten called on EU leaders to step up. The EU has pledged $50bn in support for Ukraine next year — though that falls far short of the $175bn Kyiv plans to spend on its defences, as Al Jazeera reported.

A night of escalation

Thursday also brought one of the heaviest Russian bombardments in recent weeks. Zelensky said Russia launched more than 850 drones at Ukraine between midnight and Thursday morning, hitting 15 regions — "precisely at a time when the speed of our defensive capabilities is being artificially restricted," he wrote, in an apparent reference to the Starlink curbs. Ukrainian air defences stopped 536 drones, the air force said, but impacts were recorded at 31 locations. In the central Kirovohrad region, a drone attack lasting more than 10 hours killed three people and injured six.

Zelensky also claimed a Ukrainian missile had destroyed six Russian warplanes at an airfield in southwestern Russia. Moscow, meanwhile, said its air defences had downed 166 Ukrainian drones overnight and that Russian forces had hit two vessels carrying military cargo — a claim that coincided with the drone attacks on tankers off Romania's coast, where seven sailors are missing.

"Russia is dragging out the war, so our long-range operations will continue," Zelensky said on social media. With the energy ceasefire in tatters, the Kyiv-Washington relationship at its lowest ebb since 2022, and both sides striking deep behind each other's lines, there is little sign of de-escalation.

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