Zelensky offers month-long pause on Russian refinery strikes for Patriot missiles

The offer to Washington

Volodymyr Zelensky has tied a halt to Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries to the delivery of Patriot air defence systems from the United States. In an interview with Fox News, he said Kyiv would suspend attacks on Russian refineries for one month if Washington supplied the interceptor systems for the same period. He said Russia would also have to stop attacking Ukraine's energy system, arguing that Russian strikes had hit its power and gas supply, its refineries and its people. He said he had held several different conversations with Donald Trump and his team on the subject. Asked whether the offer could be seen as an attempt to pressure Trump, Zelensky answered no, and said Ukraine would ensure the financing for the systems because the matter was not only about aid money.

Trump's demand and the energy backdrop

Trump has pressed both countries to stop attacking each other's energy facilities, and the White House wants Kyiv to halt attacks on Russian oil installations. The demand comes as Trump faces inflation driven largely by a surge in energy prices, which the conflicts in Iran and between Russia and Ukraine have fed. Zelensky's proposal is therefore a direct answer to Washington's request, with the added condition that Russia also stops hitting Ukraine's energy networks. Kyiv's position is that it cannot stay passive while Russia attacks its energy infrastructure. The Ukrainian president's comments were made in an interview with a US broadcaster, not in a formal agreement with the White House.

Patriot stocks and the delivery gap

On Friday, 30 October, the US government approved the sale of 500 Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine, the State Department announced. Zelensky welcomed the decision but warned that deliveries could take years to arrive. Ukrainian officials have warned for weeks that their stocks are running down, and Ukraine is increasingly struggling to fend off Russian missiles. Zelensky therefore proposed that the United States and European allies first hand over missiles from their own inventories, which would later be replaced by the newly ordered weapons. Since Trump took office in early 2025, Washington has stopped direct military aid to Ukraine, but allies can buy weapons packages in the US for Kyiv through the so-called Purl mechanism, and Germany has joined three such packages so far.

Talks, Turkey and the Kherson truce

Zelensky, who is on a trip to Turkey this weekend, said on Sunday, 1 November that he was ready to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin insists that any meeting take place in Moscow, a condition Zelensky rejects. Turkey, which has close relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, regularly offers to host possible peace talks between the two countries. Separately, a ceasefire in the Kherson region that had been in place since Tuesday, 27 October, ended on Sunday, 1 November, after Russia refused a proposal to extend it, Ukrainian officials said. It was the longest ceasefire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. US-mediated talks are due to resume in November after being halted.