15.10.2026
Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery on Thursday, after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv was “done” supporting a ceasefire on energy targets announced by US President Donald Trump and ignored by Russia.
Since Trump’s surprise announcement last Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt attacks on energy, Kyiv had suspended attacks on Russian refineries, which Trump blames for raising diesel prices on global markets.
But in the days that followed, Russia rained down deadly missile and drone strikes, including on energy targets such as power stations, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people.
In an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s patience had run out.
“The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We’re done,” he told the newspaper.
By effectively walking away from Trump’s demand that Ukraine halt attacks on refineries, Zelenskiy risks deepening the biggest rift between Kyiv and Washington since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Although Trump has described the ceasefire as a requirement for both Moscow and Kyiv, his public comments have focused mainly on Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries, which he said over the weekend had “damn well better stop”.
Zelenskiy also made clear he believed that changes in the capability of the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink receptors this week, which have curbed Ukraine’s ability to use them to pilot its drones, were a policy decision.
“It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he told the FT.
In a social media post overnight, SpaceX boss Elon Musk said usage of the military version of Starlink, known as Starshield, was ultimately up to Trump, as president of the United States.
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” Musk wrote.
Over the past several days, Ukrainian officials have reported that they have not received the usual warnings from Western allies about incoming Russian missiles, which rely on US satellite detectors.
Trump has denied withholding intelligence. Zelenskiy said the failure to provide the warnings had been presented to Kyiv as a technical glitch.
At the same time, military-grade Starlink receptors have stopped working in Ukraine when mounted on fast-moving objects, interfering with the performance of Ukrainian drones that rely on them for onboard guidance systems over Ukrainian territory.
A source in Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Thursday that the receptors were now working when in motion, but only at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour (160 kph). Ukrainian officials have said that is too slow for mid-range attack missions and interceptor drones that defend against Russian drones. Reuters