(Dan Tri) – Ukraine announced that it would further accept calls from Western countries to stop attacking Russian oil refineries, but on the condition that they increase military aid to Kiev.
Fire at a Russian oil refinery facility after Ukraine’s raid (Photo: Moscow Times).
`Western countries need to calculate their own interests. If they say: We will give you (Ukraine) 7 Patriot air defense complexes, but on one condition, don’t do this, don’t do this
He said Ukraine would consider stopping attacking Russian oil refineries at the request of the West if these countries agreed to increase military aid to Kiev.
On the other hand, he emphasized, if Ukraine does not receive any more air defense complexes or aid packages, then `there will be nothing to talk about`.
Ukraine is seriously lacking an air defense system to protect important infrastructure from large-scale Russian attacks.
In that context, Ukraine promoted the development of domestic unmanned weapons and increased the frequency of attacks on oil refinery chains inside Russia.
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington does not support Ukraine’s attacks on Russian territory.
Despite the US’s request, Ukraine announced that it would continue these attacks to both disrupt the fuel supply to the Russian military and affect Moscow’s important revenue source.
`We used our drones (for cross-border raids). No one can tell us you can’t do that. Without an air defense system to protect
Over the past 2 months, Ukraine has continuously attacked Russian oil refineries.
Russia responded with large-scale attacks on Ukrainian power plants, including a raid with more than 80 missiles and drones last week.
During two years of conflict, thanks to Western air defense systems, Ukraine effectively coped with a large-scale attack campaign on energy infrastructure.
However, officials said that in recent weeks, Russia has changed its tactics to cause greater damage to Kiev in the context of Ukraine’s serious shortage of ammunition and air defense systems.
Deputy Minister of Energy of Ukraine Svitlana Grynchuk admitted: `They changed tactics. In just a few weeks, all our year-long efforts to restore the energy system were destroyed in just a few days, after
Mr. Oleksandr Kharchenko, Director of the Energy Research Center in Kiev, said Russia’s new tactic is large-scale attacks on certain targets.
`Instead of continuing to focus on attacks on Ukraine’s transmission system, from the end of March, Russia began to conduct major attacks on our energy production infrastructure,` Maxim Timchenko,