The Kremlin on Monday welcomed the fact that US President Donald Trump had asked his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to stop attacks on refineries in Russia because they were causing “a diesel shortage”, EFE reports.

“Undoubtedly, we can only welcome any call on the Kyiv regime to stop attacks on civilian economic infrastructure,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at the Russian presidency’s daily telephone press briefing.

He stressed that it could currently be seen that “the situation on the oil markets in general is deteriorating rapidly, mainly because of the escalation in the Persian Gulf”, and recalled that Russia had banned exports of petroleum products “to ensure domestic supplies”, a ban which “in a certain sense affects the global market”.

“Once the domestic market is guaranteed to become saturated, the issue of lifting this ban will return to the agenda. And then a certain additional quantity could be directed towards the international market,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

Ukraine’s sustained attacks on Russian refineries have caused petrol and diesel shortages in Russia, forcing the government to restrict fuel sales at Russian filling stations and ban exports of refined petroleum products.

On Sunday, President Trump said that he had spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to ask him to stop attacks on refineries in Russia because they were causing “a diesel shortage”.

“There is one thing Zelenskyy has to do. He has to stop targeting diesel fuel in Russia. Attack other targets, but not the fuel, because it causes a diesel shortage,” he said.

The US leader was reacting to President Zelenskyy’s announcement of Saturday’s Ukrainian attack on two chemical plants and a drone factory in the Russian regions of Perm, Samara and Rostov, as well as an oil depot, a radar station and a Pantsir-S2 system, which were also attacked.

President Trump accused Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure of “hurting the world”, adding that it was the war between Kyiv and Moscow that was causing problems with diesel supplies, not the war in the Middle East.

“It’s not because of the Middle East. It’s because of what’s happening between Russia and Ukraine. So I spoke to Mr Zelenskyy about it. There are many other targets. Don’t attack the diesel because that hurts the world. We don’t want them to attack the diesel,” he said.

AGERPRES