A pause that lasted only days has given way to renewed attacks on Russia's fuel industry. Zelenskyy ordered the strikes to resume after a three-day halt, amid a widening confrontation with the US president over limits on American intelligence assistance. The Ukrainian leader said he had stopped the strikes to comply with an "energy ceasefire" Trump announced on Sunday, but that Russia had continued to hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Within hours, Russian officials reported a fire at a refinery in the Ryazan region southeast of Moscow, and a senior Ukrainian official confirmed that Ukraine had carried out the attack.
The dispute goes beyond the refineries themselves. Zelenskyy has accused Trump and Elon Musk of restraining Kyiv's military access to SpaceX satellite technology, and Ukrainian soldiers complained this week that restricted access to the Starshield network disrupted drone missions at the front. Kyiv has also said it went several days without the advance US warnings of Russian missile launches it had come to rely on. Musk has said decisions on restricting Starshield rest with the US military and ultimately with Trump, while Trump has called for Zelenskyy to be replaced as Ukraine's leader.
The refinery campaign has been Ukraine's main lever against Russia's export economy, and it now collides with American domestic politics. Zelenskyy said Russia chose to escalate after receiving sanctions relief, and that fighting without US support would be very difficult.