Ukraine ready to halt refinery strikes if Moscow stops energy attacks, Zelensky says

Ukraine is ready to halt attacks on Russian oil refineries if Moscow ceases its own strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, after US President Donald Trump demanded that Kyiv unilaterally stop its strikes. On Saturday, Trump blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for raising US diesel prices and said Zelensky had "better damn well stop", adding that Ukraine should replace him as leader because he had missed several opportunities to strike a deal with Moscow. The steep rise in global diesel prices, which followed the outbreak of the Iran war in February, has become a political liability for Trump's Republican Party ahead of next month's midterm elections, when opposition Democrats could gain control of one or both houses of Congress. Zelensky on Sunday repeated Ukraine's long-standing position that it was willing to halt attacks on Russian refineries only as part of a mutual de-escalation of the conflict, which would require Moscow to cease its own strikes on Ukrainian power infrastructure. Any such deal would need to come with "real guarantees", Zelensky said. "The real cause of the war in Europe is Russia and Russia alone," ...