Zelensky ends the pause on strikes against Russian refineries: "It wasn't a technical problem, it was a question of will"

Ukraine will resume its attacks on Russian refineries. "The restriction on strikes against refineries no longer applies. That's over," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Financial Times. Two sentences with which Kyiv publicly ended the pause it had introduced after Trump announced an energy ceasefire.

Zelensky didn't spare his American allies either. He criticised Washington's readiness to strike business deals with Moscow and Donald Trump's obvious admiration for Vladimir Putin. The backdrop is unusual: on Saturday Trump called on Ukraine to replace Zelensky and sharply attacked Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure - a day after announcing a deal with Russia for diesel deliveries, meant to calm fuel prices that have been rising since the US-Israeli war with Iran began in February.

A pause that cost dearly

Ukraine really did stop. After the energy ceasefire deal, Kyiv went two days without targeting Russian refineries and other energy infrastructure. Instead of gratitude, according to Zelensky, Ukrainian forces were cut off from American ballistic missile early-warning systems. At the same time, Elon Musk's Starlink satellite service was slowed across the whole country, hampering frontline operations and medium-range strikes on Russian military targets.

Ukrainian military officials, Zelensky says, were warned by their American counterparts that they would lose intelligence if they didn't stop the strikes on energy targets. Kyiv was later told it had been a technical problem. Zelensky doesn't buy it: "It wasn't a technical problem, it was a question of will."

The price of a new deal

Asked whether Ukraine would halt strikes on energy infrastructure to mend relations with the White House, Zelensky said he could agree only in exchange for additional American interceptor missiles for the Patriot systems. He called such a delivery the "minimum" acceptable to Ukraine.

In this story Moscow got a diesel deal, Washington is hoping for calmer fuel prices, and Kyiv was left with a throttled Starlink and a sky without American missile warnings. How many times have small countries learned that an alliance with a great power holds only until the great power finds a better deal on the other side of the table?