Foreign Affairs

Ukraine Restarts The Refinery Strikes Trump Blames For High Diesel Prices

Russians Bomb American-Owned Factory (Screenshot/X/Volodymyr Zelenskyy)

Ukraine is hitting Russian oil refineries again after a brief pause that President Donald Trump had demanded in his push to bring down diesel prices.

Ukraine hit a Rosneft refinery in Russia’s Ryazan region that helps supply Moscow on Thursday after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times his country was done holding to an energy ceasefire Russia ignored, Reuters reported. Ukraine had stopped hitting Russian energy sites for three days at the U.S. government’s request, CNBC reported.

“The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We’re done,” Zelenskyy told the newspaper, according to Reuters.

Trump blames the attacks for raising diesel prices, Reuters reported. He wrote in an Oct. 9 Truth Social post that Russia would “immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel” and that a later 3 million tons would depend on “the condition of their Diesel Refineries.”

Diesel averaged $6.32 a gallon nationally Thursday, about 21 cents below the record set Sept. 22, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

Trump announced the “energy ceasefire” on Truth Social Sunday, writing that “Both parties have agreed.” The Kremlin has said the scope of the ceasefire was never determined, Reuters reported.

“The President has been clear that Ukraine must stop striking oil refineries. These attacks are driving up costs for consumers in the United States and around the world, and they are not acceptable to President Trump,” a senior administration official told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.

The Embassy of Ukraine in Washington did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Russia then hit Ukraine’s energy and other critical infrastructure with 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones and loitering munitions overnight into Wednesday, cutting power to at least 600,000 people, Zelenskyy said on X.

The attacks continued overnight into Thursday, when Russia launched more than 500 drones and three people were killed in Ukraine’s central Kirovohrad region, Reuters reported. Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state energy company, said one of its gas production sites in the Poltava region was damaged and had to halt operations, according to the outlet.

Russia’s output and exports of gasoil — the fuel category that includes diesel — have “slumped in recent months” as Ukrainian drones do increasing damage to its refineries, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil report Wednesday.

Zelenskyy told the Financial Times he would consider halting energy strikes again only in exchange for more American-made Patriot air defense interceptors, calling that the “minimum” Ukraine would accept, Reuters reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that Ukraine’s continued strikes put it in “serious contradiction with the peace efforts of the United States” and its negotiators, The Moscow Times reported.

Zelenskyy argued in a Fox News interview Monday that “the price on diesel doesn’t depend on our attacks on diesel in Russia,” saying prices hinge instead on the blocked Strait of Hormuz.

The Ryazan plant handles nearly 5 percent of the crude processed at Russian refineries, according to Reuters.