US President Donald Trump has condemned Ukraine’s renewed attacks on Russian oil refineries, arguing that the strikes are helping keep energy prices around the world higher.
Ukraine targeted a Russian refinery after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was ending a ceasefire covering energy infrastructure — an arrangement announced by Mr Trump — and criticised the US president’s readiness to pursue agreements with Moscow.
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“All he’s doing is making the world oil price higher. Well, I think that’s a disgrace,” Mr Trump told the Newsmax news outlet after Ukraine struck a Rosneft refinery southeast of Moscow that helps supply the Russian capital.
“There are a lot of targets you can hit, but when you shoot at diesel refineries where you make, you know, diesel oil, and we need that, and the world needs that, then he’s not doing a good service for the world,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump’s administration has been working to broker a ceasefire aimed at ending the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Speaking to Newsmax, Mr Trump again said he believed Mr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin deeply disliked each other, a dynamic he said was making a settlement more difficult.
“I’m not a big fan of Zelensky,” Mr Trump said. “I think they actually both would like to see it end, but I think I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.”
As Mr Trump pressed Kyiv to stop attacking Russian oil facilities, Ukraine was also dealing with restricted access to a satellite system vital to its battlefield communications and drone operations.
The decision was made inside the White House, according to two US officials and a western official briefed on the matter. They did not identify who approved the order or who was responsible for carrying it out.
With relations between Kyiv and Mr Trump under growing strain, Mr Zelensky met NATO chief Mark Rutte in Brussels and held a series of bilateral talks with European leaders before joining an EU summit today.
