Zelensky defies US over drone strikes on Russia

● Despite American disapproval, Kyiv is targeting oil refineries in revenge for attacks on power plants

Ukraine will keep targeting Russian oil-refining facilities despite US discontent with its campaign, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, who warned that Kyiv’s forces may be forced to retreat “step by step” without more military aid from allies.

The drone attacks are in retaliation against Kremlin strikes on Ukraine’s energy grid and part of an effort to compel Moscow to stop them, the Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote in a column, citing an interview with Mr Zelensky in Kyiv.

Ukrainian forces have attacked more than a dozen refineries inside Russia with explosive-laden drones over the past month, slashing fuel production. But the strikes irked Kyiv’s allies in US who are concerned about rising domestic fuel prices in an election year, the Financial Times has reported.

“The reaction of the US was not positive on this,” Mr Zelensky told the US newspaper. “We used our drones. Nobody can say to us you can’t.”

Mr Zelensky once again urged accelerated Congressional approval of more than $60bn (€56bn) in military assistance that’s been hung up for months. Otherwise, he said, Ukraine will be forced to step up its bombardment of Russian military objects and critical infrastructure, including airfields.

“We recognise that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” he said in a post on X last week after speaking with US House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Without new infusions of ammunition and air defence systems, Kyiv’s troops will be forced to retreat and President Vladimir Putin will look for more territorial gains, including toward major cities, Zelensky told the Washington Post.

“If you need 8,000 rounds a day to defend the front line, but only have, for example, 2,000 rounds, you have to do less,” he said. “How? Of course, to go back. Make the front line shorter. If it breaks, the Russians could go to the big cities.”

Kremlin ground forces continue to probe for weak spots in Ukraine’s defences in the nation’s east. They are advanced in the Avdiivka region over the past week, Russia’s defence ministry said in an update cited by Interfax which also referred to Iskander missile strikes in the Kharkiv region.

Kyiv’s military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi told the state news agency Ukrinform that Russian forces recently had an advantage over Ukrainian artillery ammunition at a ratio of six to one.

Mr Zelensky urged the US to provide long-range missiles to allow Ukraine to step up its attacks on targets such as airfields on the Russian-occupied Crimea peninsula.

“ATACM-300s, that is the answer,” he said. “If there is no US support, it means that we have no air defence, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimetre artillery rounds. It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.”

In another move, Mr Zelensky has dismissed a long-time aide and several advisers in a continuing reshuffle while Russia unleashed fresh attacks.

He removed top aide Serhiy Shefir from his post of first assistant, where he had served since 2019.

He also let go three advisers and two presidential representatives overseeing volunteer activities and soldiers’ rights.

No explanation was given immediately for the latest changes in a wide-reaching personnel shake-up over recent months.

It included the dismissal last Tuesday of Oleksii Danilov, who served as secretary of the National Security and Defence Council.

Ukraine’s air force said yesterday that Russia launched 12 Shahed drones overnight, nine of which were shot down, and fired four missiles into eastern Ukraine.

Russia unleashed a barrage of 38 missiles, 75 air strikes and 98 attacks from multiple rocket launchers over the last 24 hours, Ukraine’s armed forces said.

Ukrainian energy firm Centrenergo announced yesterday that the Zmiiv Thermal Power Plant, one of the largest thermal power plants in the eastern Kharkiv region, was destroyed following Russian shelling last week.

Power outage schedules were still in place for around 120,000 people in the region where 700,000 people lost electricity after the plant was hit on March 22.

Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent days, causing significant damage in several regions. Officials in the Poltava region said yesterday there had been “several hits” to an infrastructure facility, without specifying whether it was an energy facility.

The death toll from Friday’s barrage of 99 drones and missiles hitting regions across Ukraine was revealed yesterday, with officials in the Kherson region announcing the death of one civilian.

A resident of the Dnipropetrovsk region died in hospital from shell wounds.