Symbolic imageUkraine resumes refinery strikes after pause under US energy truce
Zelensky said Ukraine will again attack Russian refineries, and drones set the Ryazan refinery on fire on Thursday. Moscow accuses Kyiv of undermining US peace efforts.
In a Financial Times interview published on Thursday, 15 October, Volodymyr Zelensky said: "The block is out. We're done." Ukraine had halted refinery strikes for two days (Handelsblatt) or three (Meduza) after Donald Trump announced an energy truce on Sunday, 11 October, while Russia kept hitting Ukrainian energy sites. Ryazan governor Pavel Malkov said a Ukrainian drone attack started a fire at the refinery and reported no casualties. According to Malkov's post, 14 schools and 25 kindergartens closed in parts of the city.
US pressure and Starlink
Zelensky says US officers threatened to withhold intelligence unless the strikes stopped, and that Kyiv received no US warnings of Russian ballistic missiles during the pause. He rejected the Starlink slowdown as a glitch ("It was not a technical problem, it was the will"), while Elon Musk wrote that the US government controls Starshield speeds. Zelensky would halt energy strikes only in return for more Patriot interceptors.
Airfield strike
Ukraine's general staff said it damaged six Russian Su-34M aircraft in an overnight strike on the Borisoglebsk airfield in the Voronezh region.
Kremlin reaction
Reuters reports that the Kremlin accuses Ukraine of flouting the spirit of US peace efforts. Reuters, citing Interfax, also reports that Putin described the damage from the refinery attacks as little.