Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky urged to scale back attacks on Putin’s oil facilities as he offers help to unblock Hormuz – UK Times

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has offered advice to end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, drawn from the country’s battle-hardened experience against Russia’s offensive in the Black Sea.

“We raised this issue, because it is a painful and urgent one – as we can all see, for the entire world. There is an energy crisis. They know they can rely on our expertise in this area, and we discussed it in detail,” Zelensky said, speaking to Politico in a conversation on WhatsApp group chat.

Zelensky said he “shared our experience with the Black Sea corridor and how it operates”.

“They understand that our Armed Forces have been highly effective in unblocking the Black Sea corridor,” Zelensky said.

Ukraine is joining the list of more than 20 nations offering to help the US end the blockade in the critical waters, causing an oil price rise globally. However, Kyiv is not interested in being involved in a war with Iran and has suggested an alternative.

Citing the Black Sea confrontation in 2023 when Ukraine was facing a grain exports blockade from Russian warships leading to a global food crisis, it resorted to naval warfare and sank much of Russia’s Black Sea fleet with naval drones and missiles. The remnants of the Russian Black Sea fleet were chased from its waters.

Andrii Klymenko, head of the monitoring group on the situation in the Black Sea region with the Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies, pointed to Ukraine’s major success in the critical waters.

“Ukraine managed to create a complex system of cargo ship protection from all kinds of threats on the sea route from the territorial waters of Romania to the Odesa region,” Klymenko told Politico. “I call it a tunnel.”

Fresh from a four-day visit to the Middle East, Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had reached agreement with some countries in the region to provide energy support to Ukraine.

Because of the ​Iran war, Ukraine’s international partners were “primarily” sending their ‌anti-ballistic missile systems to the Middle East ​at the moment, and Ukraine was sometimes being forgotten, he said.

Zelensky said at the weekend during his Middle East tour that he had reached a deal on diesel deliveries for a year to Ukraine, without providing further details. Diesel is vital for the functioning of ‌the Ukrainian armed forces and the country’s agricultural sector, the bedrock of ​the economy.

During his visit, Ukraine signed framework cooperation deals with Saudi Arabia ‌and Qatar, and has said another ⁠is in the works with the United Arab Emirates.

In his talks with ⁠Middle Eastern leaders, Zelensky raised the topic of air-defence missile supplies, he said, without indicating if any agreements ‌were reached.

Russian attacks on ​central and northern Ukrainian regions yesterday killed two people and injured more than 20, ⁠regional officials said.

Near the central city of Poltava, falling debris from drones killed one person, injured three ⁠and damaged a ​high-rise apartment ⁠building, regional governor Vitaliy Diakivnych said on Telegram.

Drone attacks ⁠and artillery strikes killed one ​person ⁠in the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk ‌region near the town of Nikopol, Regional Governor Oleksandr Ganzha said ‌on Telegram. Two people were ‌injured in the town and 12 throughout the region.

Russian forces launched ⁠two strikes with glide bombs in the Sumy region near the Russian border, injuring 13 people, including a 6-year-old child, regional governor Oleh Hryhorov said. Fifteen homes were ‌damaged.

Senior Russian military officials ​have said their forces ‌are committed to creating ⁠buffer zones in Sumy ⁠and in the neighbouring Kharkiv region in ‌the northeast.

Ukraine and Bulgaria are preparing a gas ⁠corridor capable of handling volumes up to 10 billion ⁠cubic ​meters ⁠annually, president Volodymyr Zelensky announced yesterday, as ​Kyiv ⁠plans how ‌to get through next winter amid ‌potential Russian ‌strikes on its energy system.

Speaking ⁠to reporters in Kyiv alongside Bulgarian prime minister Andrey Gyurov, he added the new ‌route should ​be ready by ‌the end ⁠of the ⁠year.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky said some of the war-hit nation’s allies have sent Kyiv “signals” about the possibility of ⁠scaling back its long-range strikes on Russia’s oil sector as global energy prices have surged.

Speaking to reporters in a WhatsApp chat, Zelensky said that Ukraine is ready to reciprocate if Russia stops attacking the Ukrainian energy system, and that Kyiv is ⁠open to an Easter ceasefire.

“Recently, following such a ​severe ⁠global energy crisis, we have indeed received signals from some of our partners about how to reduce our responses in the oil sector and ⁠the energy sector of the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said in a WhatsApp briefing with journalists.

A ​source ⁠familiar with the situation said ‌US officials had conveyed this message to their Ukrainian counterparts as part of their regular conversations, adding that the initial “signals” appeared to have come from Moscow.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine’s allies have urged him to scale back attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure amid the ongoing global fuel crisis, The BBC reported.

“We have received messages from some of our partners asking about how our responses against Russia’s oil sector – the energy sector – can be reduced,” Zelensky said in the voice message.

“If Russia is ready not to strike Ukraine’s energy, then we’ll respond by not attacking theirs.”

“President Trump is exactly the opposite of everything that I believed him to be,” Kennedy said on stage in Texas. “And I basically drank the Kool-Aid that he was this bombastic narcissist who didn’t read books, was ill-informed.”

“You’ll see that every time he talks about the Ukraine war, he talks about the casualties on both sides,” the secretary added. “You will not hear any Democrat ever talk about that. And he talks about the Russian kids who are dying. He gets the reports every week, and they make a huge impression on him about the death rate.”