Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, has defended Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries as a legitimate act of self-defence, arguing the quickest way to stop them is to end the war. “If we look at international law, it is clear that [hitting refineries] is in defence of Ukraine because that is where the funding comes from for this war to kill Ukrainian people every day,” she told Euronews in an exclusive interview.
Her comments come at a tense moment. US President Donald Trump announced a deal for Russia to supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel amid a global energy crunch, along with an “energy ceasefire” under which Russia and Ukraine would stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure.
The Human Stakes of Winter
Kallas drew a sharp line between the sides’ targets. Most financing for the war comes from oil, she said, and Ukraine hits refineries while Russia strikes Ukrainian energy infrastructure “to cause as much suffering for the Ukrainian people in the upcoming winter.” One side targets a revenue stream. The other, in her telling, targets heat and light for civilians.
She said the war has a clear aggressor and a clear victim. The United States, she argued, should join Europeans in pressuring Russia rather than Ukraine. The EU, she said, will keep supporting Kyiv, which hasn’t surrendered.
Washington’s Pressure on Kyiv
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv would resume strikes on Russian oil refineries. He accused Washington of suspending intelligence-sharing and disrupting Starlink satellite internet services as Russian attacks on Ukraine intensified. “The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We’re done,” Zelenskyy told the Financial Times in an interview published hours before the EU summit.
He confirmed Ukraine had halted strikes on Russian energy facilities for three days at Washington’s request. Moscow, he said, kept attacking Ukrainian infrastructure and killing civilians during that pause. US officials warned their Ukrainian counterparts that they would suspend intelligence-sharing unless Kyiv stopped its strikes, though they later presented the disruption as a technical problem. Zelenskyy rejected that explanation outright. “It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he said.
The Scale of the Campaign
Ukraine’s campaign is far from marginal. Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine struck 12 major Russian refineries in September. By late August, only five of Russia’s 32 major refineries had escaped Ukrainian drone attacks, the International Energy Agency said. Some facilities had been struck as many as 15 times since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, four years ago.
Kremlin Meets the Ceasefire With Sarcasm
The Kremlin offered no clarity on the proposed truce. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov suggested no energy ceasefire was yet in place. “What was announced? What are the boundaries of the energy ceasefire? What does it mean? Was any of this specified?” he asked on Wednesday. “That is why work in this direction is continuing,” he added.
The “energy ceasefire” has no agreed terms and no visible commitment from Moscow, while Ukrainian civilians face another winter under attack on their power networks.
Why This Matters:
This dispute shows how quickly support for Ukraine can erode when it depends on one partner’s goodwill. Kyiv says it paused strikes at Washington’s request while Russian attacks on civilians continued, then faced the threat of losing intelligence-sharing. For ordinary Ukrainians heading into winter, the stakes are heat, light and safety. Kallas’s insistence that Europe stand with Kyiv, and that Washington press Moscow rather than Kyiv, puts the burden of credible support on European institutions. An energy ceasefire Moscow won’t define protects no one. If Europe wants a just end to this war, backing Ukraine’s defence and pushing for a real diplomatic path have to move together.
- ukraine
- russia
- kaja kallas
- volodymyr zelenskyy
- oil refineries
- energy infrastructure
- intelligence sharing
- drone attacks