Refinery strikes would stop for a month in return for a month of Patriot missiles, Zelensky tells Fox News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine would stop attacking Russian oil refineries for a month if the United States supplied it with Patriot air defence missiles for that month, in an interview with the US broadcaster Fox News reported on Monday 2 November by Interfax-Ukraine and Ukrainska Pravda.

Asked why Ukraine had resumed strikes on Russian refineries despite requests from US President Donald Trump, Zelensky said he had held “different conversations, different and several” with Trump and his team on the issue.

“We asked that we can’t not respond after Russia’s attacks on our energy, after Russia is killing our people, attacks on our electricity, gas, refineries, on everything,” he said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Two options offered to Washington

Zelensky said he had put two options to the US side. “We said that if you want us not to attack Russia’s refineries, they have not to attack our energy system. And other alternative – give us Patriot missiles, we will find money, not just aid. Yes, just deliveries and we will pay for it,” he said.

“For one month, if you need us not attack their refineries, for one month, give me Patriot [missiles] for one month,” he added, as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda.

Asked whether Trump might see his comments as pressure, Zelensky said he had no concerns about sharing “the truth between partners”. “That’s why I have to share with President the truth, the real situation: America can’t help Russia. The President can’t help Putin,” he said, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

He said four regions of Ukraine had come under attack the previous night, with energy facilities the main targets, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, and that many people in Kyiv had sheltered in the metro during air raid alerts, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

Background

Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent last week that Kyiv had never agreed to a 30-day pause in refinery strikes suggested by US envoy Jared Kushner. Axios reported that Kushner raised the demand again at talks in Oslo on 20 October, Ukrainska Pravda said. On 16 October Zelensky said the US had not accepted a compromise under which Ukraine could have stopped the strikes, according to the same report.

The US State Department said on Friday 30 October that it had approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 missiles to Ukraine for an estimated $2.1 billion, Reuters reported, according to Just Security’s daily news summary.

See also: Drone attack damages industrial site at Kstovo, Russian governor says, as Kyiv denies agreeing to US-proposed refinery strike pause and Russia launches 433 drones at Ukraine overnight.