Ukrainian drones attacked a refinery in Russia’s Ryazan region early Thursday, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a brief truce spurned by Moscow was over amid deepening tensions with Washington.
The strike could further complicate Kyiv’s relations with US President Donald Trump, which have soured again in recent days. The drone strike started a fire at the refinery about 300 kilometres southeast of Moscow, Russia’s Defence Ministry and Ryazan Governor Pavel Malkov said.
Russia’s Astra online news outlet posted what it said was a photograph of the blaze.
It wasn’t possible to independently verify each side’s claims. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov labelled Ukraine’s strikes on oil facilities as a “direct and crude challenge to President Trump. “Our country has to survive, and we count on our real partners, strategic partners, the United States and President Trump. In the same interview, Mr. But we are OK that he’s in the middle.”
The Ukrainian government said that it was heeding the ceasefire, but Kremlin spokeperson Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine never stopped its strikes on refineries that have hurt Russia. The Ukrainian leader said that his patience had run out. He said in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday that Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries would resume. “We’re done,” he was quoted as saying. “Really, yes, between us,” Mr. Zelenskyy said when asked if he felt betrayed by the American president. Zelenskyy said “we are losing a strong partner” in the United States. He said that “it’s painful when President Trump chooses one side, not our side.
