U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop targeting Russia’s diesel fuel infrastructure, arguing the strikes are triggering shortages inside Russia.
Speaking to reporters at his golf resort in Ireland, where he is attending the Irish Open, Trump was asked whether he’d spoken with Zelenskyy since his recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He responded by drawing a distinction between Ukraine’s broader campaign and its fuel-sector strikes specifically, indicating Kyiv could keep hitting other targets but should leave diesel production alone given the disruption it was causing.
Ukraine has spent months striking deep into Russian territory, hitting refineries and energy infrastructure it says helps bankroll and sustain Moscow’s more-than-four-year invasion. The campaign has led to fuel rationing in parts of Russia despite the country’s status as a major oil and gas exporter, and has more recently expanded to hit major Russian retail and logistics targets.
Trump’s comments came after a night of heavy drone exchanges between the two sides. Ukrainian officials said Russian drones struck the port city of Odesa and sparked a fire near a border crossing with Poland, while Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted or suppressed over 400 of roughly 450 Russian drones launched overnight. On the Russian side, officials in Tatarstan reported two civilians killed and 14 injured after a Ukrainian drone hit near an oil and petrochemical hub in Nizhnekamsk. Ukraine separately said its forces struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region overnight, damaging a pipeline and starting a fire, with three people injured.
The exchange comes as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that Moscow remains open to resuming peace talks with Ukraine and the U.S. this autumn, even as both sides continue trading long-range strikes with no sign of an imminent ceasefire.
