Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Washington wants Kyiv to stop hitting Russian oil. Kyiv now has a price.
For weeks the Trump administration has pressed Ukraine to pull its drones back from Russian refineries, arguing the strikes are feeding global diesel prices ahead of the US midterm elections. Volodymyr Zelensky has now put a condition on that demand.
In an interview with Bloomberg published on October 18, the Ukrainian president said he had floated a direct trade to Washington: Ukraine would hold its fire on Russia’s energy sector if the United States delivered more interceptors for its Patriot air defense batteries.
“My latest model was: We don’t target Russian diesel, you give us missiles for Patriot systems to protect our facilities,” Zelensky told Bloomberg.
The United States currently transfers about 12 Patriot interceptor missiles a month, roughly a quarter of the rate under the Biden administration. Zelensky said the offer had not been accepted and that Washington instead wanted the pause without any additional deliveries.
Zelensky says Russia hit the grid 76 times in a week
The proposal lands against a bitter backdrop. On October 11, Donald Trump unilaterally announced an energy truce between Moscow and Kyiv. Ukraine suspended its refinery strikes for three days; Russia, according to Zelensky, never did.
In a public address on October 18, Zelensky said Russia had deliberately struck Ukraine’s energy and oil and gas sector 76 times in the week since Trump’s announcement, with overnight attacks on substations in the Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa regions leaving tens of thousands without power.
Ukraine resumed its own long-range strikes on October 15, hitting the Ryazan refinery outside Moscow. “The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done,” Zelensky told the Financial Times that morning, as carried by Meduza.
Zelensky points to Starlink and intel pressure
The Ukrainian president accused the Trump administration of using other levers to force concessions. He said US officials had warned Kyiv they would cut intelligence sharing if the refinery campaign continued, and alleged that Starlink speeds over Ukraine had been throttled.
“I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate,” Zelensky said in the Bloomberg interview, adding that he did not want to think his American partners believed the war could be ended sooner at Ukraine’s expense.
Intelligence sharing was restored on October 18, Zelensky said separately on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” after what he described as a short interruption. He said he hoped for direct talks with US officials in the coming days.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected the criticism regarding the alleged suspension or pause in intelligence sharing, saying that Zelensky should “focus on ending the war.”
