EDITORIAL: Trump wants Russian refineries spared, and Kyiv must hold its cards while the Kremlin refuses

An hour of power

What Trump said on September 27

Donald Trump told reporters on September 27 that he had asked Volodymyr Zelensky to “take it easy” on Russian refineries. We say no.

Not no to a truce. No to a one-sided truce.

A truce Moscow refused, now asked of Kyiv.

This winter in Ukraine, no one will count in refined tons. People will count in hours of power.

An hour is a hot meal. An hour is a charged phone. An hour is a water pump still running.

The night before

The night before, the Russian drones were flying. According to Zelensky, as carried by the Kyiv Independent, they hit apartment buildings, energy infrastructure and other civilian sites. Eight oblasts.

In the Poltava district, a falling drone damaged power lines. About 500 customers lost power, according to the same tally.

Five hundred homes. A fridge goes quiet. A boiler stops. A hand gropes for the flashlight at the back of a drawer.

A Ukrainian winter is measured in hours, not barrels.

Take it easy

In front of reporters

The line deserves to be reported in full. Trump explained that he had told Zelensky to go easy on the refineries, according to the Kyiv Independent. By Trump’s account, Zelensky answered that Kyiv would “probably” do so.

That “probably” exists only in Trump’s telling. RBC-Ukraine notes that no confirmation came from the Ukrainian president. Nor from his office.

Who heard that word, apart from the man reporting it?

Trump justifies his request by pointing to prices. In his view, the strikes on refineries are creating a global problem. The phrase is short. The problem lies elsewhere.

Kyiv’s answer

Kyiv answered twice. On September 23, Zelensky said no one had tried, during their private meeting in New York, to force Ukraine to stop those strikes. Ukrainska Pravda reports it.

On the 28th, a Ukrainian official spelled out Kyiv’s rule to the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine will stop striking refineries if Moscow accepts an energy truce. Only if. No agreement has been reached.

This is not the first announcement. On September 14, on Truth Social, Trump was already claiming that the two countries had agreed to stop those strikes. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow confirmed it.

A truce announced twice is not a truce signed once.

On the 23rd, Moscow answered

Rubio meets Lavrov

The energy truce did get its chance. On September 23, Marco Rubio met Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Afterward, the secretary of state said the two parties had expressed interest in a limited truce. Grain. Energy. It would not be easy, he added.

That same Wednesday, according to Al Jazeera, Russian strikes hit two gas stations and other sites in Kyiv. One dead. Seven injured.

One word from the Kremlin

The same day, Dmitry Peskov was asked whether this Western talk of a truce was pure rhetoric. His answer, according to the New Voice of Ukraine: “absolutely.”

One word. A closed door. No dated counterproposal.

Vladimir Putin claimed, also on the 23rd, that his forces could achieve all of Moscow’s war aims on the battlefield.

The Institute for the Study of War drew the conclusion. In practice, the Kremlin rejected the proposed energy truce.

That is why we write this. We stand with Kyiv, which keeps control of its drones. Against the September 27 request to spare the refineries with nothing in return. Because the Kremlin answered “absolutely” on the 23rd. Because its drones hit Ukraine’s energy system on the night of September 26 to 27.

Moscow shut the door. So the knock comes at Kyiv’s.

Ilsky, September 26

Four hundred kilometers

Kyiv answered in its own way. On the night of September 26, Ukrainian drones struck the Ilsky refinery in Krasnodar Krai. The General Staff confirmed a fire, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

The refinery processes about 6.6 million tons of oil a year. According to the General Staff, its products also supply the Russian armed forces.

The drones flew about 400 kilometers. The 1st Separate Center of the Unmanned Systems Forces and the 414th Brigade, known as Madyar’s Birds, carried out the strike, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Fire Point, the maker of the FP-1 drone, says three primary processing units and a tank farm were hit. The refinery has reportedly suspended operations.

Moscow, for its part, claims it shot down 645 Ukrainian drones in a single night, according to the Kyiv Post. That is its number. Ilsky burned anyway.

Article 51

The General Staff named the legal basis. Striking these facilities falls under Ukraine’s inherent right of self-defense, under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

The stated goal: to reduce Russia’s military and economic potential.

This is not revenge. It is not a drone’s whim. It is a line in a ledger.

Ilsky offline means one less tank of fuel for the front.

The cards Kyiv holds

Numbers that weigh on Moscow

We have to say why these strikes matter. The KSE Institute, at the Kyiv School of Economics, measures what Russia exports every month.

In July, its exports of petroleum products fell to 1.36 million barrels a day. That is 31.6% less than in June. A record low, according to the report published on September 2.

Its oil revenue in July: US$13.8 billion. Two billion less. Through the Black Sea, petroleum products fell 47% in one month.

On July 8, Moscow banned diesel exports. The report links that ban to Ukrainian strikes on its refineries and infrastructure.

Its two biggest customers remain India and China. The tap is not shut. It is pinched.

The currency of a truce

That is Kyiv’s hand. The hand is the FP-1 drone, 400 kilometers out. The hand is the 414th Brigade. The hand is Article 51. The hand is reciprocity, laid down by Zelensky in New York. The hand is a Kremlin counting its barrels.

The Kremlin admits as much. On September 15, Peskov set out his conditions for an effective truce, according to Meduza. An end to Ukrainian attacks on tankers. The lifting of sanctions on Russian energy exports.

No one asks protection for something that isn’t hurting.

Without drones, there is no truce to negotiate.

Diesel at US$6.23

The trucker who pays

Now we have to give the other camp its best form.

American diesel hit US$6.23 a gallon in mid-September, a record, according to the Kyiv Independent. It cost US$3.60 at the end of February. Nearly double. The number is right.

Trump said Zelensky should stop destroying Russian diesel, because it hurts the world. His Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, faulted Ukraine for blowing up Russian energy facilities, MS NOW reports.

November in the balance

The midterm elections are in November. The price of diesel weighs on them, Al Jazeera notes.

The argument, in its strongest form, fits in one sentence. Kyiv is making an Ohio trucker, a farmer on the American Plains and a family heating with oil pay for its war.

It is a serious argument. It talks about real bills. It talks about a real fill-up.

That sentence deserves evidence. Not an adjective.

Whoever pays at the pump deserves the truth about the pump.

152 versus 68

The Gulf first

The evidence exists. It comes from the KSE Institute, cited by the Kyiv Independent on September 28.

From March to August, diesel and gasoil exports from the Persian Gulf fell by 152 million barrels. Russia’s fell by 68 million.

So the Gulf took more than twice as much off the market as Russia. More than twice. Not a nuance.

Hormuz, not Ilsky

According to the Kyiv Independent, the diesel spike comes first from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the war with Iran.

Alan Riley, of the Atlantic Council, summed up the Ukrainian-diesel theory in one line: obviously, it is not true.

Ilsky did not close Hormuz. Kyiv did not set the price at the American pump.

And yet the September 27 request targets Kyiv. Not the Gulf.

Hormuz weighs twice as much as Ilsky, and Kyiv gets the lecture.

Kyiv’s drones count too

Sixty-eight million barrels

Now, what makes our own camp uncomfortable.

Sixty-eight million barrels is not nothing. Ukrainian strikes really do take diesel off the world market.

According to the Kyiv Independent, Russia’s seaborne exports of products fell 21% from January to July. That is about 4% of the world’s seaborne diesel trade.

So part of the American bill does come from Krasnodar. Small. Real.

Ilsky, hit 16 times

Another uncomfortable fact. Ilsky had been hit at least 16 times before June, according to the independent Russian outlet ASTRA, cited by the Kyiv Independent.

The Kyiv Post lists this year’s strikes. January 1. February 17. June 2. July 10. August 8. Then September 26.

A refinery hit 16 times has had to be restarted more than once. The drone campaign wears things down. It doesn’t switch them off in one blow.

In Krasnodar, Governor Veniamin Kondratiev reported deaths and one person seriously injured in the Seversky district, where the refinery stands. He did not name the sites hit. These are deaths. We do not file them in a column.

That is true. And it does not change this: the Kremlin refused the truce that would protect those refineries, and those people.

Attrition is not victory, but it can be counted.

Fourteen dead in one night

Zaporizhzhia, 989 strikes

Back to the night of September 26 to 27. The one before the sentence.

About 170 attack drones, 76 of them jet-powered Shaheds. At least 14 dead and 57 injured across Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities as carried by the Kyiv Independent and Africanews.

In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, 989 strikes on 59 localities in 24 hours, according to Ivan Fedorov, co-chair of the regional defense council. Four dead. Five injured.

In Donetsk Oblast, three dead. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, two dead. In Kharkiv Oblast, two dead. In the Odesa region, one dead, and a grain silo hit.

The same day, the sentence

Fourteen people will not see the winter the prime minister is preparing for.

The same day, the president of the United States recounted asking the victim of aggression to take it easy.

And yet, in the remarks reported, no equivalent request is addressed to the Kremlin.

Fourteen.

Fourteen lives, and it is Ilsky someone wants spared.

Better prepared than last year

Prime Minister Koretskyi

On September 28, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said, according to Ukrinform, that Ukraine is entering this winter better prepared than last year.

More generating capacity built this year. More critical facilities with backup power. Better protection. More spare parts. More repair crews. More machinery.

He also gave the other half. The enemy has built up its means. Jet-powered Shaheds. Ballistic missiles stockpiled for winter.

This is not a promise of comfort. It is an inventory. Cables, transformers, hands.

No other option

It will not be easy, he acknowledged. Ukraine has no option but to hold. His government has asked partners for emergency crews and equipment.

I am afraid of that winter. Not for the map. For the kitchen where people keep their coats on. For the cold radiator under a palm. For the hour of power waited for while staring at the ceiling.

Holding also means keeping the means to answer back.

Holding without striking would mean waiting without defense.

The truce that would hold

Three tracks

There is a way out. Kyiv has already described it.

On September 22 in New York, Zelensky mentioned three truce tracks under discussion, according to the New Voice of Ukraine. Power grids. Grain corridors. Black Sea shipping routes.

He said he was ready for an energy truce. On one condition: that Moscow stop striking Ukrainian energy at the same time. He rejected any unilateral order, the Kyiv Independent reports.

A date, a check

A truce that holds starts at the same hour for both parties. A truce that holds can be verified. A truce that holds carries two signatures, not one man’s account.

The three-day truce announced in May 2026 ended in mutual accusations of violations, Al Jazeera recalls.

On September 15, the day after the truce Trump announced, Ukrainian drones struck the Syzran refinery. Russian strikes targeted Kyiv. Meduza notes it.

Who will check the start time, this time?

An announcement is not enough. Neither is an account. It takes a log of strikes, kept by a third party.

Without verification, a truce becomes a pause for the aggressor. Without reciprocity, it becomes the disarming of the country under attack.

Reciprocal, dated, verified: otherwise it is just an order.

The right idea, the wrong request

The possible good move

Let us judge Trump on his acts, one by one.

Pushing a reciprocal energy truce is a good idea. It could spare Ukraine a winter of destroyed power plants. Rubio carried it all the way to Lavrov. It is a good move, if it targets both capitals.

He also signed, on September 18, a law that gives him the means to squeeze Moscow; that is where the pressure should go.

The two bad moves

Announcing on September 14 a truce no one had confirmed was a bad move. The next day, Peskov could call it “very good” and set his conditions.

Asking the victim of aggression alone, on the 27th, to slow down is another bad move. It serves Moscow’s refineries first.

A truce announced, then denied, then demanded of one party only…

And yet the same man holds the tool to hit the buyers of Russian oil. All he has to do is turn the request east.

Right heading, wrong address.

Moscow first

Where the request belongs

So here is what we ask, plainly.

We ask that Washington carry the truce request to Moscow first, and in public. We ask that any energy truce be reciprocal, dated and verified. We ask that Kyiv not be the only one to ground its drones.

Until then, Ukraine’s General Staff is acting within the framework it has named itself: Article 51.

As long as the Kremlin refuses

As long as Peskov answers “absolutely,” Kyiv holds its cards.

As long as Zaporizhzhia counts 989 strikes in a day, Kyiv holds its cards.

The day Moscow signs and complies, the drones stay on the ground. Not before.

We are not asking for war. We refuse a lopsided truce.

Poltava before Ilsky

Two losses in the same week

Five hundred homes in Poltava lost power on the night of September 26 to 27. Ilsky lost three processing units the night before, according to Fire Point.

The two losses are not equal. One heats children. The other fuels an army.

Diesel will be expensive this winter, here too. It will be expensive above all because of Hormuz.

The bill and the address

This winter, at the pump, will we be able to tell the price of Hormuz from the price of Ilsky?

The numbers are already on the table. On the 23rd, a refusal. On the 27th, a request at the wrong window. Two dates. One refusal, and it comes from Moscow.

An hour of power kept in Poltava weighs more than a ton refined at Ilsky.

Spare the refineries, yes, the day the Kremlin spares Poltava.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Interfax-Ukraine — General Staff confirms the strike on the Ilsky refinery, September 26, 2026
• Ukrinform — Koretskyi says Ukraine enters winter better prepared, September 28, 2026
• KSE Institute — Russian oil tracker, exports and the diesel ban, September 2, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• Kyiv Independent — Trump wants refineries spared, Kyiv demands reciprocity, September 28, 2026
• Kyiv Independent — the strike on the Ilsky refinery, September 26, 2026
• The New Voice of Ukraine — the Kremlin rejects the energy truce, September 24, 2026