Zelensky says Ukraine would halt refinery strikes if Russia stops hitting energy grid
President Zelensky said Ukraine is ready to stop striking Russian oil refineries if Russia ends attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. He also said 23 people, four of them children, were killed in Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on 11 October that Ukraine is ready to stop striking Russian oil refineries if Russia stops attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure. He said any de-escalation steps must be mutual and backed by "real guarantees".
"It is already realistic today to stop strikes on energy, but Putin does not want to do it," Zelensky wrote in a statement on his official Telegram channel. He added: "The real cause of the war in Europe is Russia, and only Russia." No Russian response had been reported at the time of writing.
Human toll of recent strikes
In the same statement, Zelensky said search and rescue work in Zaporizhzhia, a major city in southeastern Ukraine, ended only on the morning of 11 October. According to him, Russian strikes there killed 23 people, four of them children. The statement did not give the date or the weapon used in the attack, and the figures have not been independently verified.
Zelensky also said Russian forces struck a medical facility in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, on 10 October. During the night of 10–11 October, he said, Russia hit civilian infrastructure, residential buildings and energy facilities. He did not give details or casualty figures for those attacks.
On the morning of 11 October, a Russian strike hit a five-storey apartment building in Sloviansk, a city in the Donetsk region. Zelensky said one entrance, or stairwell section, was completely destroyed and that people may still be under the rubble. The number of casualties was not known when he posted.
He thanked Ukraine's emergency services for dealing with the aftermath of the strikes.
Weekly totals
Zelensky said that over the past week alone Russia launched about 1,450 glide bombs, 75 missiles of various types and more than 1,640 attack drones, about 60% of them jet-powered. These figures are the president's and could not be independently verified.
Diplomatic coordination
Zelensky said Ukraine coordinates with its partners almost daily at various levels, and that calls with European leaders were planned for 11 October. According to him, Ukraine is working on additional defence packages, primarily for air defence and for munitions for combat aviation.
Ukraine has carried out long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries, while Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian power and energy facilities. Zelensky's statement is a conditional offer for both sides to stop those strikes; it did not set out a timetable or describe what guarantees Ukraine would seek.
