Donald Trump has asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop Ukraine's drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, framing the campaign as a threat to global fuel supply rather than a legitimate wartime tactic. Zelenskyy has countered with a proposal for a mutual energy ceasefire that would also halt Russian strikes on Ukraine's power grid.
Trump made the request on September 13, 2026, while attending the Irish Open, following calls he had held with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The shift puts him at odds with his own earlier statements, which had at times signaled openness to Ukraine striking back at Russian energy targets.
A year of strikes on Russian fuel infrastructure
Ukrainian forces have targeted more than a dozen Russian refineries throughout 2026, reaching facilities as far as 1,500 kilometers from the front lines. The Slavyansk ECO refinery, which processes roughly 5.2 million metric tons of crude per year, was struck the night of September 12-13, hours before Trump's remarks. The Taneco refinery, one of Russia's more modern plants, has also sustained damage this year.
The strikes have pushed Russia from a net exporter of certain refined products toward quietly importing fuel to cover domestic demand. Diesel and aviation fuel power Russian military logistics, so disrupting refinery output is, in theory, also disrupting the army's ability to move tanks and trucks — pressure that Western sanctions alone have struggled to deliver on their own.
Zelenskyy's counteroffer: a mutual pause
Zelenskyy has floated a mutual energy ceasefire under which both sides would stop attacking each other's energy infrastructure. Because Russia has systematically struck Ukraine's power grid, heating systems, and electricity plants throughout the war, his proposal makes any pause on refinery strikes conditional on Russia halting attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure too.
Trump has held multiple high-level calls aimed at building a broader conflict-resolution framework, with energy-infrastructure pauses repeatedly surfacing as a near-term, lower-stakes confidence-building step.
What a one-sided pause would risk
Ukraine has limited leverage over Russian behavior at the negotiating table, and degrading Russian refining capacity is one of the few tools it controls independently. If Zelenskyy halts strikes without a matching Russian commitment, he risks giving up that pressure point for goodwill with an administration that has signaled impatience with the war's length.
A durable, two-sided halt would remove a persistent source of supply-side risk from refined fuel markets. But a one-sided pause that lets Russia repair its refineries while continuing to hit Ukrainian power infrastructure would likely push Kyiv to resume the campaign.
Source: Crypto Briefing
Trading involves risk.
Risk Disclaimer
