Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Will Hit Russian Refineries Harder
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainian intelligence has obtained documents showing Vladimir Putin has authorised attacks on a far broader range of civilian targets before winter, and that Ukraine will answer by striking Russian oil refineries. Russian attacks on Saturday killed at least six people and damaged Kyiv’s Northern Bridge for a third day. Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi has retaken about 140 square kilometres of the eastern Donbas.
“We saw documents and we know that they allow them to attack infrastructure, logistics, and especially to attack in the cities, in the villages, everywhere, roads, schools, hospitals,” Mr Zelenskyy said, describing the aim as pressuring people to leave the capital and other cities. His answer is deliberately narrow: “With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy. First of all, oil refiners: what gives money to them for this war.” He added that Ukraine would not strike civilian objects. The bridges are the clearest expression of the new doctrine. The Institute for the Study of War counts six separate strikes on Kyiv’s Southern and Northern crossings since the afternoon of 1 October, in an effort to split a city of three million across the Dnipro. It also records something technically new: a presidential adviser reported Russian use of mesh network repeaters, giving operators a temporary local link to adjust a drone’s trajectory mid-strike, similar to a device used in the failed assassination attempt on the SBU’s Oleksandr Poklad on 4 September. Overnight on 2 October Russia launched 157 drones, 45 of them jet-powered, and Ukraine downed 131. Interceptor fighters bring down about 60% of the jet-powered type, and ammunition is short; a first shipment of small, cheap air-defence missiles arrives in the second half of this month. Watch Russian refinery throughput.