Ukraine never agreed to pause strikes on Russian refineries, sources confirm

Ukraine's campaign targeting Russian oil refineries is ongoing, Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent, rejecting reports that Kyiv had agreed to suspend the strikes.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 29, citing people familiar with the operations, that Ukraine had agreed to a "pause" in attacks on Russian oil refineries.

According to the report, the pause was expected to remain in place until after the U.S. midterm elections, potentially extending into November. The WSJ also claimed the decision followed intense political pressure from the Trump administration.

However, Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent that Kyiv had never agreed to halt the strikes.

Less than 24 hours after the Wall Street Journal made the claim, multiple Ukrainian drones struck the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Russia's Samara Oblast. Footage published by monitoring channels on Telegram showed multiple plumes of thick black smoke streaking into the morning sky above the refinery, with flames also clearly visible.

Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent that U.S. envoy Jared Kushner had indeed suggested a pause, but Ukraine had never agreed to that.

"Jared suggested that we not hit refineries for 30 days," a senior Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent, adding that "Nobody had given such an order," and that they "didn't know where" the Wall Street Journal had heard otherwise.

The strikes on the refinery came after another series of deadly Russian attacks targeting Ukrainian civilians. Fifteen people were killed, and at least 14 were wounded in a Russian jet-powered drone strike on a train station in Dnipro, whilst in Chernihiv, two 15-year-old girls were killed, and 13 people were wounded in a cruise missile strike on the city center.

"Every Russian strike on our cities and communities always gets our fully justified response," Zelensky said on Oct. 30, without explicitly taking credit for the attack on the Novokuibyshevsk refinery.

Zelensky had previously publicly refuted claims that Ukraine had ordered a pause in strikes on Russian oil refineries. "Our guys tried to be a little more careful during these days. But they do not have an order," he told journalists in Kyiv on Oct. 27.

Another senior Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that Ukraine would continue to strike Russian oil infrastructure but would not publicly take credit for such strikes, to avoid the appearance of deliberately picking a fight with the Trump administration.

Despite silence from the Ukrainian government, prominent Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, which manufactures many of the long-range drones used in Ukraine's strikes deep into Russia, openly acknowledged and celebrated the strike.

"Russia’s Novokuibyshevsk refinery is hosting visitors from Ukraine today," the company said in a post on social media, with a later post acknowledging that the company's FP-1 long-range drones had been used to conduct the strike.

The Russian government also confirmed the Ukrainian strikes on its oil refineries, with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak claiming Ukraine had attacked three Russian oil refineries and a gas-chemical complex on Oct. 30.

"Today, there was another attack on Russian refineries, four processing plants. More precisely, three refineries and one gas-chemical complex. There was minor damage at one plant, but overall, our defense system, the air defense system, worked," Novak said.

"We had a brief pause, but today, attacks on refineries have resumed, and our facilities are working to protect themselves," he said.

The only pause in Ukraine's long-running campaign against Russian oil infrastructure came after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally announced an "energy truce" on Oct. 11. Ukraine paused strikes for around 72 hours, before it was clear that Russia had no intention of ever adhering to the terms announced by President Trump.

Neither Kyiv nor Moscow had apparently been consulted about the truce, which Russia completely ignored, launching a cruise missile strike on Kharkiv's CHP-5 thermal power plant mere hours after Trump had announced the truce on Truth Social.

Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil infrastructure have been greeted with a "shrug" in Washington, according to a U.S. official who spoke to the Kyiv Independent.

Another figure close to the administration told the Kyiv Independent that much of the administration's rhetoric around Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure was aimed at a domestic audience, pointing out that the CIA was still supplying Ukraine with intelligence on Russian air defense dispositions that helped facilitate Ukraine's deep-strike campaign.