Ukraine will double down on attacks against Russian oil refineries in response to what President Volodymyr Zelensky described as a new Russian doctrine of airstrikes designed to force people to abandon Kyiv and other cities, he said on Saturday, insisting Kyiv would not respond by targeting civilians.
Intelligence documents point to a broader target list
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence had obtained documents showing that President Vladimir Putin had authorised a much broader range of attacks on civilian targets ahead of winter. "We saw documents and we know that they allow them attack infrastructure ... logistics ... roads, schools, hospitals, to pressure people to leave the capital, leave different cities," he said. "This is the goal of the operation."
Speaking as air raid sirens sounded outside the presidential offices, Zelensky argued the shift was meant to project strength while Russian forces were losing ground in a key frontline region and taking higher casualties. The Kremlin was not available to comment on Saturday. In a separate statement urging foreign nationals to leave Kyiv, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow would continue systematic retaliatory strikes for Ukrainian attacks on Russia in recent months. Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians.
Kyiv says the answer is Russia’s oil money
Over the past week Kyiv has come under persistent drone and missile attack against energy and telecoms assets and road and rail infrastructure, including the first strikes on the bridges across the Dnipro River that link the capital’s two banks. Trump administration officials last month urged Ukraine to hold off hitting Russian oil installations, warning the strikes were pushing global diesel prices higher. Zelensky said he had seen no sign that Putin wanted peace talks or an energy ceasefire, and that Ukraine would therefore answer on Russia’s energy sector. "With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy. First of all, oil refiners: what gives money to them for this war," he said. "But we will not respond, of course, just like them, on any civilian objects."
Zelensky said the Ukrainian counteroffensive, codenamed Vivaldi, had recaptured around 140 square kilometres of the eastern Donbas, territory Russia insists it must control in full as a condition of any peace settlement.
G20 warning and the race against new Shaheds
After the Trump administration invited Putin to attend the G20 summit in Miami in December and discussed business deals with Russian envoys, Zelensky urged Washington not to normalise relations before peace is secured. He said he would be happy to meet Putin for talks at the G20, but warned against "illusions" that taking the Donbas would end the war. "Peace is more important than any kind of economy," he said. The United States has proposed resuming trilateral technical talks in the coming weeks in the UAE, but no date or venue has been set.
The refinery pledge comes as Ukraine races to counter a new generation of fast, jet-powered Shahed drones that Moscow has launched by the dozen each day since the summer. Zelensky said F-16 and MiG fighters were now shooting down around 60 percent of the jet Shaheds, but that 20 mm cannon ammunition was running low. Kyiv is boosting its jamming capability and expects a first shipment of small, cheap air-defence missiles capable of catching the new drones in the second half of October. Five new interceptor drone models are in development, with two test models achieving a success rate of about 30 percent so far, he said.
Ballistic missiles and the winter ahead
Ukraine this week announced the first combat use of its domestically built FP-7 ballistic missile, with a range of around 250 kilometres. Zelensky said he had pressed the manufacturer, Fire Point, to finish the longer-range FP-9, which the company says could reach Moscow. "I said to them, where is my FP-9? We need the FP-9. And the FP-9 will be [ready] this autumn, I'm sure," he said.
Ukrainian officials warn Russia has stockpiled hundreds of ballistic missiles for an expected winter onslaught on electricity and water infrastructure, after last winter — the worst of the war — left swathes of the country without power and heating for days. Following talks in Brussels this week, Zelensky said funding had been secured for drone orders into early 2027 and that Kyiv and its European partners had a plan to close a $27 billion defence-budget gap using budget reallocations, bilateral aid and credits from next year's portion of a €90 billion EU loan.
Kyiv's message is that it will absorb the winter campaign and keep striking the refineries that fund it — a strategy that bets Ukraine's expanding drone and missile industry can raise the cost of Putin's new doctrine faster than Moscow can raise the pressure on Ukrainian cities.
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