Ukraine Resumes Strikes on Russian Oil Refineries Despite Trump Pressure
Ukraine has resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries despite pressure from US President Donald Trump, a few days before the US midterm elections. The Guardian reported the renewed attacks on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Russian state media said Ukrainian long-range drones set fire to the Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod region overnight to Nov. 1. The plant is also known as Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez. Kyiv Post reported that drones also struck a power plant in Kstovo. Shortly before that, a major strike targeted a refinery owned by the state oil company Rosneft in the Samara region, further east.
The refinery strikes had been paused for a time. Ukraine stopped attacking Russian refineries after pressure from Trump, according to Reuters, and the pause was not formally announced. The Wall Street Journal reported that it was expected to last until after the midterm elections, though it could extend further into November. Trump had described an "energy ceasefire," a temporary halt in attacks on energy targets, which appeared to take both warring sides by surprise, according to NBC News. Earlier, Ukraine had abandoned a brief truce involving energy-related targets, saying Moscow had not respected it.
Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent that they never agreed to a demand from Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump, to pause refinery strikes for 30 days. Kremlin officials said Ukrainian raids on Russia had restarted on Friday, Oct. 30, and that Kyiv was now ignoring US wishes. Trump has blamed Zelenskyy for the rise in global fuel prices. In October, Trump also lifted US sanctions, the economic restrictions a government places on trade, on Russian diesel.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces hit a defence enterprise in Russia's Rostov region that made missiles, and that a Pantsir air defence system was destroyed as part of what he described as a long-range sanctions campaign. Russia, for its part, struck four Ukrainian regions overnight to Nov. 1, cutting electricity to hundreds of thousands of households. In Kyiv, power cuts lasting eight to 10 hours followed damage to a critical thermal power plant.
Zelenskyy also gave figures for October. He claimed that 54,400 Russian military personnel were killed or wounded that month, the highest monthly total since the full-scale war began. He said Ukraine recaptured 96.2 square kilometres of territory in October, 10.4 square kilometres more than Russia seized.
In a separate thread, a six-day local ceasefire in the occupied town of Oleshky, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, held on its final day, according to NBC News, even as fighting continued elsewhere. The truce was due to end late on Sunday. Oleshky sits on the left bank of the Dnipro River, opposite Kherson, which Ukraine recaptured in autumn 2022.
