Trump calls on Ukraine to stop strikes on Russian diesel citing global shortage

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian diesel, saying the attacks are causing a global shortage. He spoke after diesel prices in the U.S. hit a record on Friday, soaring past $6 a gallon on average.

Ukraine has for months been targeting Russia’s oil and gas industry with long-range strikes, prompting fuel rationing across the country and causing Moscow to ban diesel exports in July, one factor disrupting the global supply of diesel. But the global crunch also came after the war on Iran curtailed oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Fuel prices are weighing on Americans as they prepare to vote in midterm elections in November.

Trump was asked by a reporter if he had spoken with Zelenskyy following his recent conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He responded by calling on Zelenskyy to halt strikes against Russia.

“Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the Irish Open, which is being played at his Doonbeg golf club.

“We spoke to Mr. Zelenskyy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel, because that’s hurting, that’s hurting the world,” he said.

Kyiv says Russia’s oil industry both funds and directly fuels Moscow’s more than four-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

Russia has ramped up its air campaign against Ukraine in recent weeks, using ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce Ukraine’s defenses. Moscow’s attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter in what officials say is meant to demoralize civilians.

Civilians were killed and injured overnight into Sunday as Russia and Ukraine exchanged large-scale drone strikes.

Two people were killed and 14 more injured near an oil and industrial hub in Russia’s Tatarstan, according to local officials, while Ukrainian authorities reported on reported on Russian drones pummelling the Black Sea port of Odesa and starting a fire near a border crossing with Poland.

The two Russian civilians died after a drone slammed into a tree near their parked car in the city of Nizhnekamsk, according to the office of regional head Rustam Minnikhanov. Nizhnekamsk houses a key cluster of oil refineries and other industrial plants. Mayor Radmir Belyaev said that a fire had broken out at an unspecified “enterprise.”

Ukraine also claimed to have hit a major oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, in Russia’s Krasnodar region near Crimea. The Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) agency said its drones struck a key oil processing unit and the refinery’s tank farm overnight into Sunday.

Krasnodar authorities said the strike on “an enterprise” in Slavyansk-on-Kuban injured three people and damaged an oil pipeline.

Russian forces shot down 389 Ukrainian drones during the night, Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday.