KYIV: hit petrol stations in Kyiv on Tuesday and Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery, as the warring sides carried on with strikes on each other's energy targets despite an announcement by US President Donald Trump that they had agreed to stop.
Russia launched 200 drones at Ukraine's capital and other cities in overnight attacks, killing two people. In addition to petrol stations in Kyiv it struck energy and port infrastructure in other regions, Ukrainian officials said.
For its part, Ukraine hit a Russian oil refinery in Syzran in Russia's Samara region on the Volga River, and also drone production facilities in the Taganrog and Oryol regions, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The Samara governor said an industrial facility was hit there without identifying it. The Taganrog governor said a warehouse of e-commerce firm Ozon was struck there.
"Russia continues to attack our energy sector, regular logistics and critical infrastructure. And our responses to them for this are tangible," Zelensky said on the Telegram app.
Trump said on Monday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to halt strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, which he says are the main factor in a global fuel shortage that has driven diesel prices in the United States to record highs.
Zelensky said that Ukraine was ready to halt such strikes but required credible guarantees from its partners that Russia would also stop.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump's suggestion was a "very good idea", but that it would take more to bring down global fuel prices.
"It is necessary to ensure safe commercial shipping and navigation here, including for oil tankers," Peskov said, adding that Russia would stay in touch with the US about Trump's proposal.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure with missiles and drones persistently since Moscow launched its full-scale attack in 2022, and began targeting petrol stations in Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks.
Kyiv has stepped up long-range attacks on Russia this year, including a campaign targeting oil refineries that has caused fuel shortages.
Previous attempts by the US administration to broker a ceasefire on energy infrastructure have failed.
Ukrainian officials said that one person was killed in Russian attacks on Kyiv and another died in the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast of the country.
Two petrol stations in Kyiv were damaged, the state energy company Naftogaz said. Reuters heard several explosions in Kyiv and the surrounding region.
So far this year, Russia has damaged 16 petrol stations in Kyiv, city officials said, adding that there was no risk of fuel shortages due to diversified logistics.
"We see that the enemy started to strike petrol stations in Kyiv with precision," Andrii Tkachov from Kyiv's military administration told Ukrainian TV.
As Moscow's attack on Ukraine was under way, neighbouring Poland held military aviation operations as a preventive step, Poland's Armed Forces said, adding later that there was no violation of its airspace.
In Lithuania, a Nato fighter jet shot down a drone early on Tuesday, the National Crisis Management Centre said. It did not say the origin of the drone. Similar incidents in the Baltic region in recent months have involved Ukrainian drones that Kyiv says were steered across Nato borders by Russian signal jamming. — Reuters
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