Kremlin accuses Ukraine of flouting spirit of US peace efforts with strikes on Russian oil refineries

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Thursday said that Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries ran counter to US peace efforts, after a Ukrainian drone struck a refinery in Russia’s Ryazan region overnight.

US President Trump declared an energy ceasefire on Sunday, something Ukraine said it had first learnt about from media reports and which Russia did not publicly commit itself to.

Kyiv said it had paused strikes on Russian oil refineries for three days, but had resumed them after Russia continued to attack Ukraine’s energy sector.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that Moscow did not perceive that Kyiv had ever complied with the ceasefire and said that the fact that it had struck another Russian refinery was “nothing new.”

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“The Ukrainian regime in Kyiv continues to strike these facilities, thereby, of course, coming into serious contradiction with the peace efforts of the United States and of the American negotiators who are indeed making very vigorous efforts to somehow initiate the peace process. But so far, these vigorous attempts have been thwarted by the unwillingness of the Kyiv regime – and of (President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy personally – to make peace,” said Peskov.

Russia itself had previously argued that the scope of the ceasefire had not been determined, and on Wednesday said it had struck seven Ukrainian energy infrastructure facilities.