Ukraine has resumed its attacks on Russian refineries with a strike at an installation in the Ryazan region, the regional governor said on Thursday, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky voiced his anger at a "dangerous" withdrawal of US intelligence.
Since US President Donald Trump's surprise announcement of an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, Kyiv had refrained from attacking Russian refineries, which the US leader had blamed for raising diesel prices on global markets.
But Zelensky had voiced increasing frustration with Russia's continued attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which he said on Wednesday had left 600,000 people without power. 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 favoritism 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,” he told the newspaper.
Pavel Malkov, the governor of Ryazan, said in a post on Telegram that a major Ukrainian drone attack on the region had sparked a fire at an oil refinery.
"The material damage is now being assessed. Emergency services are working at the scene," he said.
In his interview, Zelensky criticized Washington’s eagerness to strike business deals with Moscow and Trump’s apparent admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Trump calls for Ukraine to replace Zelensky after announcing Russia diesel deal
Trump on Saturday called for Ukraine to replace Zelensky 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 US-Israeli war with Iran began in February.
Despite Ukraine's suspension of refinery attacks, Ukrainian officials complained that they had not received any US 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 frontline operations and medium-range strikes against Russian military sites.
Musk said on Wednesday in a post on X/Twitter that Starshield - the military version of Starlink - was owned and controlled by the US government, which decided on any limits on speed.
Zelensky has said that Ukrainian military officials were warned by their US counterparts that Washington would block intelligence unless they halted strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.
In the FT interview, Zelensky said the suspension was presented to Kyiv as a technical glitch, but he dismissed the idea that failures of the Starlink satellite system might have been caused by a fault.
“It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he told the FT.
Zelensky demands US interceptors in exchange for halting strikes on refineries
Asked whether Ukraine would be open to halting energy strikes as a way of repairing relations with the White House, he told the newspaper he could only agree if, in return, he was given more US-made Patriot interceptors, calling it the “minimum” that would be acceptable.
"We didn't destroy any relationship," he said, claiming it wasn't up to him to repair US-Ukraine relations.
Ukraine claims to have damaged six Russian military aircraft
Ukraine's military said on Thursday it had damaged six Russian Su-34M military aircraft in an overnight strike on the Borisoglebsk airfield in Russia's Voronezh region.
In a Telegram statement, Ukraine's military general staff said it had confirmed damage of varying degrees to all six aircraft.
The Su-34M is a large fighter-bomber, costing tens of millions of US dollars apiece and frequently used by Russia to drop devastating glide bombs onto Ukrainian cities near the frontline.
Ukraine said on Telegram that it used its Neptune coastal missile system in the attack.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Kremlin condemns Ukraine refinery strikes as ceasefire violation
The Kremlin said on Thursday that Ukraine's targeting of Russian energy infrastructure ran counter to US peace efforts, after a Ukrainian drone struck a refinery in Russia's Ryazan region overnight.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia did not perceive that Ukraine had ever complied with an energy ceasefire announced last week by Trump. Ukraine says it paused such strikes for three days but resumed them after Russia continued to attack its own energy sector.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.