Ukraine to target Russian refineries as Zelenskyy responds to air strikes

Ukraine will double down on attacking Russian oil refineries in response to a new policy of air strikes by Moscow designed to force people to abandon Kyiv and other cities, but will not target civilians, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukraine's intelligence services have obtained documents showing that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had issued a "new doctrine" of military attacks on a much broader range of civilian targets ahead of this winter, Mr Zelenskyy said.

"We saw documents and we know that they allow them to attack infrastructure, logistics, and especially to attack in the cities, in the villages, everywhere, roads, schools, hospitals," Mr Zelenskyy told Reuters.

"To pressure people to leave the capital, leave different cities: this is the goal of the operation."

Driving the shift in policy, Mr Zelenskyy said, was Mr Putin's desire to appear strong at a time when his military was losing ground in a key frontline region and sustaining higher levels of casualties.

In a statement urging foreign nationals to leave Kyiv, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow would continue to systematically hit targets in what it said were retaliatory strikes for Ukrainian attacks on Russia in recent months.

Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians.

Counteroffensive in Donbas

Mr Zelenskyy said a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, code-named "Vivaldi", had recaptured about 140 squarke kilometres of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and was still ongoing. 

Russia has said it must control Donbas in its entirety as a condition for any peace deal.

In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump's administration has sought to revive talks to end the four-year-old conflict — Europe's bloodiest since World War II.

The US leader last month urged Ukraine to refrain from hitting Russian oil installations, saying that was sending global diesel prices surging.

But Mr Zelenskyy, speaking as air raid sirens blared outside the gilded halls of the presidential offices, said he had received no indications from Russia that Mr Putin was interested in peace talks, or discussing a ceasefire on energy infrastructure.

Over the past week, the Ukrainian capital has come under persistent attack by Russian drones and missiles targeting energy and telecoms assets, road and rail infrastructure. For the first time, Russia has targeted the bridges across the Dnipro River connecting east and west Kyiv.

Mr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would react to the change in tactics by Moscow, but would not target civilian infrastructure indiscriminately.

"We have to respond in any way [we can]. With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy,"

Mr Zelenskyy said.

"First of all, oil refiners et cetera: what gives money to them for this war. But we will not respond, of course, just like them, on any civilian objects."

'Peace more important than economics'

After the Trump administration invited Mr Putin to attend a G20 summit in Miami in December and discussed business deals with Russian envoys, Mr Zelenskyy urged Washington not to normalise relations with Russia before ensuring a return to peace.

Mr Zelenskyy said he would be happy to meet Mr Putin for peace talks at the G20, but he warned the US not to believe in "illusions" that Russia would simply end hostilities if it gained control of Donbas.

"It's not fair just to normalise," said Mr Zelenskyy, dressed in his trademark black T-shirt and military-style jacket.

Any resumption of economic and diplomatic ties with the West had to be in return for Russia ending hostilities, he said: "Because peace is more important than any kind of economy."

While the US has proposed a resumption of trilateral talks in the coming weeks in the UAE, Mr Zelenskyy noted that an exact date and location for the technical-level conversations had still not been set.

Ukrainian officials warn that Russia has stockpiled hundreds of ballistic missiles ahead of an expected winter onslaught against electricity and water infrastructure. 

Last winter, the worst of the war, Russian strikes left swathes of the country without electricity and heating for days at a time.

Since the summer, Moscow has also begun launching dozens of fast and relatively cheap jet-powered Shahed drones a day at Ukraine, whose air defence teams have struggled to cope because their interceptor drones were too slow to catch them.