Volodymyr Zelensky launched a retaliatory strike on a major Russian oil facility after Donald Trump caught Kyiv off guard by agreeing a significant diesel arrangement with Vladimir Putin.
Soon after the Trump-Putin conversation, Russia carried out another deadly attack on sleeping civilians in Zaporizhzhia. At least seven people were killed, including three girls, while 10 others were injured and 16 remained unaccounted for.
The latest deaths bring the number of civilians reportedly killed by Russian attacks over the past three days to nearly 90.
Natalia, describing the devastation, said she found her mother struggling to breathe when she reached her.
“She had fallen on her face, and her whole face was shattered. I couldn’t get to her. There was rubble everywhere,” the heartbroken woman said.
Her mother later died as a result of the devastating Russian airstrike.
The diesel agreement between Trump and Putin shocked officials in Kyiv. Zelensky accused the US president of showing “weakness” by yielding to the Russian leader.
Trump, however, claimed Zelensky had disregarded six requests to stop targeting Russian oil refineries, arguing that the strikes were pushing up fuel costs—particularly diesel prices in the United States ahead of the midterm elections, according to Axios.
Ukraine struck Russia’s Yug Rusi oil-loading terminal, a crucial export facility, only hours after Donald Trump reached a major diesel agreement with Vladimir Putin
Under the agreement, Russia will supply diesel to help lower fuel prices in the US, but the deal has sharply worsened tensions between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky
Adding to Kyiv’s frustration, Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said the 90-minute conversation with Trump had been so cordial that “neither side wanted to hang up first”.
Trump said he was prepared to remain in contact with Putin “this evening, through the night, and into the next day”.
Zelensky responded after acknowledging that the US decision to suspend sanctions in order to purchase Russian diesel had taken his government by surprise.
In a major overnight operation, Ukrainian forces targeted the Yug Rusi oil terminal in Rostov-on-Don, a facility that processes petroleum products from the Novoshakhtinsk refinery.
The export hub, which has an annual capacity of 3.5 million tonnes, was reportedly set ablaze after being targeted by a wave of around 50 drones.
A nearby railway bridge in Rostov-on-Don was also damaged, forcing rail traffic to stop in both directions. Two vessels in the Sea of Azov were reportedly targeted as well.
Ukrainian officials showed no sign of backing down, warning that Russian oil infrastructure would remain a target.
In a pointed response to Trump, Zelensky said: “Russia is weaker on the front lines than at any other point in this war. That is why Putin turns to terror.
“That is also why he seeks backroom arrangements involving one concession after another—to gain time and create fresh opportunities to continue the war.
“Any relaxation of sanctions against Russia without a clear, lasting agreement to de-escalate is an unmistakable demonstration of weakness.”
In another sting to Ukraine, Putin’s foreign affairs aide said the one-and-a-half hour call with Mr Trump was so friendly ‘neither side wanted to hang up first’. (Pictured in Alaska last year)
The strikes on Russia’s oil terminal came as Mr Zelensky accused Mr Trump of ‘weakness’ by caving in to Putin
Mr Zelensky accused the US of making ‘an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged’.
But the deal Mr Trump struck with Putin would mean diesel prices ‘coming down in record numbers and fast’, the US President said.
He added: ‘Lower prices for Americans, particularly ranchers and truckers is my greatest priority.’
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With the US midterm elections looming next month and prices at the pumps rising rapidly, Mr Trump had been under pressure to lift the economic burden.
Hailing the deal as ‘a strong one not a weak one’ on his Truth Social account, he said that 300,000 tons of diesel would be released immediately by Russia ‘to the American and global marketplace’ followed by 500,000 tons in November and another million after that.
He added that a further three million tons of Russian diesel would be delivered ‘within a short period’, depending on Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries.
Addressing reporters outside the White House, Mr Trump said ‘massive amounts’ of oil would be coming in and he ‘wanted to thank President Putin’.
Speaking today, Ukrainian former Vice PM Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said the Trump-Putin deal would be no different to Mr Trump buying diesel from Osama Bin Laden if that was available.
She accused Mr Trump of ‘clear hypocrisy’ after previously threatening other countries with sanctions for buying Russian oil, and ‘appeasement of the aggressor’.
‘If we asked every single American would they be fine if Donald Trump was buying, say if it was available, diesel from Osama Bin Laden and they were fine with this then something is profoundly wrong with the United States of America,’ she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘It is an unacceptable and totally painful move on the part of the American president and it also goes against the interests of the US itself and the European community.’
She suggested that the Ukrainian negotiators in Miami would now have a difficult time at the table when the US had blindsided her country with the diesel deal.
Asked if Russian diesel would really cut prices when it appeared to still be a relatively small amount, Mr Trump’s former economic adviser Stephen Moore told Radio 4: ‘Every little bit helps.
‘If you put more diesel on the market, that’s going to bring the price down and we are now in a situation in many states where truckers are paying as much as $7 a barrel for diesel, which is a lot when it used to be less than $4.’
Mr Moore said the ‘biggest issue for American voters right now is the issue of affordability’ and ‘the high price of gasoline and diesel’ and it would be ‘a blessed relief to truck drivers and motorists’ if prices came down.
Meanwhile, a UK government spokesman said it would continue ‘to maintain pressure on Russia through the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed by the UK, increasing the cost of Putin’s aggression and supporting efforts to secure a just and lasting peace’.
Shortly after Mr Trump’s announcement, the US Treasury formally issued a temporary licence allowing Russian diesel into the market.
There are now fears that there is serious damage to the fragile relations between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky.
A Ukrainian official claimed that during eight-hour US-Ukrainian talks in Miami on Friday, Mr Trump’s negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner threatened that America could cut off Ukraine from its lifeline intelligence if Mr Zelensky kept up strikes on Russian oil facilities, reported Axios.
This was denied by a US official who was quoted as saying: ‘Zelensky is misreading the room.
‘By continuing to hit refineries, he is eroding the good will that he has built with Trump over the last six months.’
The Ukrainian negotiating team left Miami early after the diesel deal was announced.
Mr Trump gave the Kremlin despot a lifeline with an estimated £3.4billion deal soon after Putin’s aircraft was disrupted in its return to Moscow by a Ukrainian drone swarm around the Russian capital.
Russia immediately lifted its export curbs on diesel.
A Russian guided aerial bomb strike hit a five-storey residential apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia at 5am.
In total, more than two dozen residential buildings were damaged.
An entrance section collapsed amid reports of seven dead, including three young girls – continuing a recent savage Russian pattern of targeting Ukrainian civilians with terror strikes.
Russian air defences shot down 560 Ukrainian drones overnight.