Strikes on Kstovo and Samara refineries

Russian state media reported on Sunday that Ukrainian long-range drones had set the Kstovo refinery in Nizhny Novgorod oblast alight overnight, in the latest of Kyiv's renewed Ukraine Russian oil refinery attacks. The fire at Kstovo came soon after a major strike on another large refinery, this one in Samara oblast and owned by the Russian state energy giant Rosneft.

The renewed campaign runs against a Wall Street Journal report that Kyiv had yielded to White House pressure and would stop bombing Russian energy infrastructure. Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent no such agreement existed: they said they had not accepted a request from Jared Kushner, the US president's son-in-law, for a 30-day pause on refinery strikes.

• •Kremlin officials said the raids on Russia restarted on Friday, complaining that Kyiv was now "simply ignoring" US wishes
• •Trump has publicly held Volodymyr Zelenskyy responsible for higher global fuel prices, and last month removed US sanctions on Russian diesel
• •The Ukrainian president has stayed silent on the latest refinery strikes, reportedly so as not to provoke a hostile reaction from Washington

Zelenskyy's response and Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy

Zelenskyy said his armed forces had hit a defence industry enterprise in Russia's Rostov region that made missiles, and that a Pantsir missile system was destroyed. He described the operations as part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions".

In his account, retaliation was necessary because Moscow has kept up an unrelenting drone and ballistic missile campaign against city-based energy facilities. Overnight, four Ukrainian regions were struck and hundreds of thousands of households lost electricity.

"The intensity of the strikes is very high, and the Russians are seeking to maximally exploit the deficit of ballistic missile interceptors," Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

Kyiv itself endured power cuts lasting eight to 10 hours on Sunday after a critical thermal power plant was damaged.

October losses and the Oleshky ceasefire

According to Zelenskyy, October cost Russia 54,400 military personnel killed and wounded - the war's worst monthly toll since the full-scale invasion began. Ukrainian forces, he said, took back 96.2 sqkm (37 sq miles) last month, a net gain of 10.4 sqkm (4 sq miles) over what Moscow seized, adding: "Russia is losing."

Meanwhile, a six-day local ceasefire brokered by the US first lady, Melania Trump, was due to come to an end late Sunday in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky.

• •Over the weekend, hundreds of residents were reunited with family members in northern Ukraine, an evacuation that both sides called a success
• •Ukrainian observers say the Russian military used the truce to reinforce its positions and to swap hungry and exhausted troops garrisoned in Oleshky
• •Oleshky sits on the left bank of the Dnipro River, opposite Kherson, which Ukraine recaptured in autumn 2022
• •The observers expect a renewed Russian onslaught on the town is inevitable

Pope's appeal and possible trilateral talks

During his Sunday prayer, the pope voiced hope that the Oleshky ceasefire - the most significant since 2022 - could lead on to wider peace moves. "I hope that the cooperation between the parties, which made this necessary humanitarian gesture possible, will strengthen their willingness to engage in dialogue," he said.

Trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the US are likely later this month. Kremlin officials said on Sunday that Vladimir Putin was willing to talk directly with Zelenskyy by phone, but that European leaders who support Ukraine should not be involved in any such call.

Putin is insisting that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donetsk oblast - which Russia has been unable to seize since 2014 - plus further territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces the Kremlin does not control but says it has "annexed".