Ukraine set Moscow's biggest oil refinery on fire on the night of 19–20 September, the last night of Russia's parliamentary vote. Ukraine's General Staff said its crews hit the Gazpromneft plant at Kapotnya and damaged its distillation units. Gazpromneft runs 12 million tons of crude through that plant a year and supplies roughly 40 percent of Moscow's fuel.
Moscow's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said Russia shot down more than 1,600 drones that night, 450 over the capital, and called it the largest attack Ukraine has flown. Nobody has verified his count.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday morning that "Russia has unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry due to its War with Ukraine." He wrote that "a large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up," that the war "must be ended," and put the dead at 25,000 a month, mostly soldiers — his figure. "What a shame!"
Trump had asked the same in private. He phoned Zelensky to stop hitting Russia's oil refineries, the Financial Times reported on Monday, and officials told the paper he made his case in one word, three times: "diesel, diesel, diesel." Zelensky dated the call himself, posting at 2:16 p.m. on Sunday that he had "just spoke with President Trump" in "an important conversation." He never mentioned refineries.
Trump gives the same reason every time: diesel prices hurt the world. He has put a number on that price himself, in his own financial disclosures.
