Just after Ukraine's President Zelensky conceded Tuesday that he did in fact hold to a brief energy ceasefire at President Trump's insistence, Reuters is reporting a major rebound in Russian crude output.
"Russian oil refineries increased crude processing by 25% in the second half of October compared to the beginning of the month after persistent drone attacks on the plants ceased, three industry sources told Reuters."
"Since mid-March, Russian refineries had faced weekly attacks by Ukrainian drones that caused domestic fuel shortages and prompted authorities to ban exports of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel, as well as begin importing oil products by sea," the report adds.
Days after Trump proclaimed an Oct.11 energy ceasefire deal - which didn't actually look fully agreed to at the time (given some level of mutual attacks persisted) - "Russian authorities said some of the last attacks this month were strikes at refineries in Ryazan and Surgut carried out in mid-October, with no further strikes after October 16," Reuters writes Wednesday.
On Wednesday Ukrainian media is citing direct confirmation of an energy strike pause from a closed-door meeting with reporters that happened the day before:
In the first 72 hours of the energy truce, Ukraine suspended strikes on Russian oil refineries while its forces focused on other targets, the president added.
"I said, 'Let's respond calmly by striking other targets for at least 72 hours. We won't touch the oil refineries.' That didn't help. There was all kinds of rhetoric, and no one thanked us for those three days," Zelensky said.
"There was the incident involving the Ryazan oil refinery (on Oct. 15). There were other operations as well. We targeted data centers and locations where Russian ballistic missiles are concentrated," Zelensky has also explained.
The Ukrainian side has complained bitterly about the request from Washington, given a key part of its strategy is to pummel Russian energy in order to starve the Russian state of vital funds to feed its war machine.
Kiev will no doubt chafe further at these emerging reports of a Russian crude output rebound.
The US Treasury was also ordered by Trump to issue a general license suspending US sanctions on Russian diesel fuel until April 2027.
Making matters worse for Ukraine, FT is reporting the following significant headline this week: Washington discusses Russian deals for US oil majors in Ukraine peace talks. This puts even greater distance between the differing 'goals' in terms of what the US and Ukraine hope to get out of engaging Moscow diplomatically.
According to officials cited in the FT report, "the White House and the Kremlin suggested that after the war ends, a joint venture involving American and Russian oil giants could be revived off the coast of Sakhalin, an island in the Far East."
They further discussed "bringing in American giants to a plan to resume sales of Russian oil to Europe via the Druzhba pipeline." Kiev's ardent hawkish backers in the European Union are meanwhile trying to maintain leverage, but are likely to find themselves very distant from the negotiating table.