US President Donald Trump has said Ukraine and Russia have agreed to stop striking each other’s energy facilities, a claim neither Kyiv nor Moscow has confirmed.
“Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on September 14, adding that Russia had agreed to do the same. He blamed the rise in world diesel prices mainly on the war rather than on the conflict in Iran.
The post followed remarks he made on September 13 at the Amgen Irish Open, the golf tournament staged at his course in Doonbeg, County Clare, western Ireland. Asked about his contacts with Kyiv, he told reporters Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had to stop knocking out Russian diesel and should pick other targets instead.
Zelensky responded within the hour, saying he was not certain Russia wanted to abide by any such understanding. He said Ukraine was ready to halt its own strikes if its partners could guarantee Moscow would stop hitting Ukrainian power stations, critical infrastructure and food supply routes.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed calls for Ukraine to stop attacking Russian refineries but declined to say whether Russia would show the same restraint. He has argued that the tighter fuel market owes more to instability in the Gulf than to the war.
Kyiv treats Russian energy infrastructure as a legitimate military target on the grounds that oil and gas revenues pay for the invasion. Its long-range drone campaign has already pushed Moscow into a series of export restrictions, including a ban on jet fuel sales abroad announced in June.
Those strikes have compounded a supply squeeze that began with the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, 2026, which has already left European carriers short of kerosene. The International Energy Agency has pointed to both disruptions in explaining the shortfall.
The European Union still receives Russian-origin diesel indirectly, routed through third countries, leaving member states exposed to any further loss of refining capacity. The European Commission warned in May that the world faced what could be the most severe energy crisis in history.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, told the Yalta European Strategy conference on September 12 that the pressure was telling. He said Gazprom’s value had fallen from $270 billion (€234 billion) two decades ago to about $30 billion (€26 billion), though he cautioned that Russia could still finance the war.
Ukrainian drones struck the Rosneft-owned Syzran refinery in Russia’s Samara region overnight, the regional governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said. He said more than 40 drones had attacked the area, damaging an industrial site and residential buildings.
