”Russia does not understand anything except force.” Zelenskyi said that Ukraineʼs partners should support strikes on Russian refineries

President Zelenskyi said that Ukraineʼs partners should support strikes on Russian oil refineries and military plants.

He said this on April 3 at a press conference with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

Commenting on the call of the UN not to attack Russian infrastructure facilities, the president proposed to first come to Kharkiv, which regularly suffers from Russian attacks, and "then condemn something."

"Russia does not understand anything except force. And all the condemnations regarding the illegal occupation of our territories, attacks on our energy, blackouts that we experienced in these two years, undermining of our infrastructure, our hydroelectric plants, etc. All these condemnations did not lead to a decrease in attacks by the Russian Federation," the president emphasized.

He added that "all this suggests that these people understand only one thing — when there is a powerful answer."

"Therefore, I believe that on the contrary, our Western partners should support Ukrainian responses," Zelenskyi said.

The President of Finland added that Ukraine strikes for legitimate purposes.

"The question is the price of oil, or do we have any difficulties with it? War is collateral damage, and whoever attacks, they know what theyʼre doing, and theyʼre doing it skillfully without putting civilians at risk. This should always be kept in mind... Russia understands only this way," commented Stubb.

• Since the beginning of 2024, Ukraine has intensified attacks on oil and gas facilities on the territory of Russia — refineries, oil depots, and gas terminals.
• In particular, on March 13 in Ryazan, Russia, an oil refinery caught fire after a drone attack. Prior to that, drones attacked a refinery in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and an oil depot in Oryol. At the same time, the oil refinery of the Lukoil company in the Nizhny Novgorod region lost part of its capacity due to the attack. On March 17 , another oil refinery in the Krasnodar region of the Russian Federation caught fire due to a drone attack.
• On March 22, the Financial Times wrote that the US even called on Ukraine to stop attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, as this could raise global oil prices and provoke attacks on Ukrainian energy in response.
• At the end of March , a sharp decline in gasoline production was recorded in Russia — the countryʼs gasoline output fell by 7.4% to 754.6 thousand tons.
• The last powerful attack on the territory of the Russian Federation took place on the morning of April 2 — drones hit enterprises in Yelabuz and Nizhnyokamsk in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. The strikes took place in the special economic zone "Alabuga", which is already under US sanctions — there Russia established the production of analogs of Iranian Shahed drones.