'We're done': Ukraine resumes strikes on Russian oil refineries as 'only leverage' for peace talks

Russian officials say Ukraine has attacked an oil refinery south of Moscow. It comes hours after the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, told the Financial Times Kiev was resuming strikes on energy targets inside Russia. Ukraine effectively going against the wishes of the U.S. president amid continued Russian attacks. Days after Donald Trump unilaterally announced a ceasefire on Sunday, days after he said Moscow would begin supplying the United States and global markets with diesel. For more on all of this, we can bring in Peter Zalmayev, director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative. Good afternoon, Peter. Thank you for joining us on the program today. It seems that Vladimir Zelensky has acknowledged the shift coming from the United States and is now openly defying the U.S. president. I know he doesn't have a whole lot of options, but is that wise in your opinion? He will judge. You know, there's much to be said about this. Of course, to start with, you know, that energy ceasefire that the American president announced, of course, had no basis in fact. Neither side was actually aware that they had, you know, reached that conclusion with each other. Neither the Moscow side, nor Kiev. And so this came as a surprise, of course. And of course, when you talk about the energy ceasefire, it presupposes, too, to be able to tango and to dance this dance. And, you know, if you, you know, consider that this energy ceasefire should consist of cessation of strikes on oil refining facilities, that this is an agreement heavily favoring Russia because Russia has all the oil refining facilities and Ukraine has only one in the town of Kremenchuk. and it's been largely taken out of business out of order and so russia itself went ahead and violated the spirit and the letter of that supposed agreement by continuing to strike on um power plants just the other day kiev 600 000 people without light without any access uh to electric uh electricity and so this that does appear that you know zelensky signaling this is the only leverage it has to try to bring the Russians to the negotiating table, is by continuing to strike on oil refining facilities. Whether that's wise or not, well, you know, he may have been able to show some, or may have been well advised to show some more wiggle room and maybe agreed unilaterally to just cease for the next few days or weeks hitting Russian facilities, considering that Ukraine does have other targets, including Yandex data centers, the sort of the Russian internet giant, et cetera. But whatever advice has been given, they're going to go ahead with this. And of course, the math also bears out the stark fact that it is not Ukraine and its strikes on the energy, on the oil facilities of Russia that are responsible for the steep increase in the price of oil and diesel, but it's the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz. It's something that Donald Trump either doesn't understand or pretends he doesn't understand on the eve of the elections where he's afraid that the electorate will blame him and his fiasco in Iran for the high prices. But that is also a factor in the prices. But I want to ask about these tensions with the United States Because now, once Donald Trump finds out about this, we have seen over the past 48 hours or so reports from Kyiv that the U.S. intelligence sharing is not what it used to be, as well as Starlink services, which are slower than they typically are supposed to be. Can Ukraine do without U.S. intelligence and without Starlink at all? the you know the black and white answer to this is probably no and despite zelensky's last minute last ditch diplomacy in europe his trip to london um to try to shore up european support technologically speaking uh europe is just not up to the level of sophistication the breadth the scope of what america has been able to provide ukraine and i think donald trump is sending that message in a very sort of a devilish way, if you allow me. He's not actually acknowledging any cessation of intelligence sharing. And Elon Musk also claims that he has no information about the, you know, the decrease in the speed of the Starlink signal, et cetera, saying that it's up to the Pentagon. The Pentagon has refused to comment on this. So there's that sort of plausible deniability on the part of Donald Trump. But if that is the case and they're doing it, they're doing it in a way not to invite any more criticism from Congress. But yes, it's a very tough situation. And that's why I think it makes sense for Zelensky at least to consider some kind of a step of reconciliation and a concession to the American president to keep him on the good side if Ukraine can afford not to hit on Russian oil facilities at least until the election. I don't think it will move the needle when it comes to the high oil price, but at least it will allow Ukraine to try to stay in Donald Trump's good books. Because besides the deal on diesel, which the U.S. seems to have struck with Russia, we also have that the U.S. seems to be proposing to some European countries to unfreeze sovereign Russian assets that are here in Europe. this in order to restart peace talks it seems that normalizing ties with Moscow is a strategy the US is is going after this because it feels sanctions have not worked in your opinion have sanctions worked because you know from the European perspective we've had over 20 rounds of sanctions and the war still seems to be continuing the war is continuing but Ukraine continues to stay in the game and so we don't have the counterfactual of what if uh sanctions had not been in place, and Russia had been able to amass much more money and purchase components unimpeded to build its ballistic missiles, etc. We just don't know that, right? The other thing that you mentioned, the unfreezing of the sovereign wealth funds, is very speculative at this point. This is, I think, a move that will invite stern, very stern and stiff opposition on the Hill, bipartisan, both from the Democrats. and the Republicans, and of course, let's not forget the Europeans. There's 210 billion euro, yes, euro frozen, of which over 180 is in Euroclear. It's actually in the European jurisdiction, and the German Chancellor Merz has already ruled that out. I think Europeans are going to be very much dead set against that idea, so Donald Trump is going to have to take on Brussels in addition to Kiev try to push that through. I don't think he has got the political capital or the time to do this before the election. This is an all-star. This is something that you would show as a carrot to the Russians once they have actually shown what concessions they're willing to make. And so far, we haven't seen any other than we will consider stopping destroying Ukraine if it should capitulate and become part of Russia. That's essentially Vladimir Putin's formula and he's trying to sell to Donald Trump and that actually has invited all sorts of speculation what's in it for Donald Trump uh you know we you know there's there's there's information that uh a deal is being made to purchase assets of Lukoil that would benefit Donald Trump's family members and allies I mean we've seen that we've been there before it would not come as a surprise once again if Democrats take power in one of the you know chambers of congress all of it will come out as a result of uh hearings that will be held on the topic peter we're gonna have to leave it there thank you for joining us on the program today peter Zamayev