In a recent phone call, Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. Whether a request or a demand, this appears, certainly at first glance, fundamentally different from the Biden administration’s policy of restricting the use of US long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia.
The US president has justified his position primarily on economic grounds. He argues that the regular attacks on Russian refining capacity were contributing to disruptions in diesel supplies and rising fuel prices. The International Energy Agency has estimated that Ukraine hit one Russian oil refinery every three days over the first eight months of 2026.
Biden’s restrictions, by contrast, were justified by the US largely over concerns about military escalation and the possibility that strikes deep inside Russia could provoke a wider confrontation between Moscow and Nato.
But focusing solely on these stated justifications hides a deeper continuity. Both policies reflect an effort by Washington to shape the boundaries of Ukraine’s military response to suit broader American interests.
The significance of this becomes clear when considering Ukraine’s refinery approach. Kyiv’s systematic campaign to target Russian oil infrastructure is about reducing Russia’s economic and military capacity. Ukrainian officials have described the attacks as part of a calculated strategy to reduce Russia’s economic potential.
These attacks were not symbolic. Refineries produce the gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel that support both military and civilian activity. It makes them a logical target within a strategy of economic warfare. And the strategy has borne fruit. The IEA report found that “gasoline output is down by 20% compared with 2025 levels, while diesel production is estimated to have fallen by nearly 30%”.
From a Ukrainian perspective, these refinery strikes are a strategically valuable means of imposing costs on Russia without requiring costly and large-scale offensive operations along the front.
This context is important because it highlights what is actually at stake in Trump’s efforts to halt the campaign. It was not directed at an ineffective or indiscriminate form of violence. It was aimed at one of Ukraine’s more successful campaigns against Russian infrastructure.
Zelensky reportedly rejected Trump’s request, telling the Wall Street Journal’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly meeting on September 23, that “our lives are more important than the price of energy”.
The disagreement between the two leaders reflects their competing conceptions of strategic success. For Zelensky, disrupting Russian refining capacity weakens the economic foundations of Russia’s war effort. For Trump, the same attacks allegedly generate undesirable consequences in the form of higher energy prices and fuel shortages.
The question is not whether the strikes matter – but which effects should be prioritised: pressure on Russia or stability in global energy markets?
What this tells us about US foreign policy
This reveals an important theoretical point about escalation and restraint. Biden’s restrictions reflected a traditional understanding of escalation rooted in military interaction between major powers.
For Biden, the danger lay in provoking Russian retaliation against a backdrop of Russian threats to retaliate with nuclear weapons – or creating the perception of direct US involvement in attacks on Russian territory.
Trump’s position points to a broader conception of escalation by not being limited to Russia itself, but rather where economic interdependence constitutes its own pathway of strategic risk. Refinery attacks may not increase the likelihood of direct military confrontation. But they can create consequences that spread through global energy markets and generate political costs for governments far removed from the battlefield as they are threatening to do by raising fuel costs for consumers shortly before a crucial election.
The comparison therefore suggests that the Biden and Trump administrations differ less in their desire to constrain Ukraine than in the risks they prioritise. Biden sought to manage military escalation with a nuclear-armed adversary. Trump seeks to manage the economic consequences of a protracted conflict.
But both positions stem from the same underlying reality: Ukraine’s military objectives are not identical to those of the US.
The refinery campaign demonstrates this particularly clearly. What Ukraine sees as a highly effective means of degrading Russian capacity can simultaneously be viewed in Washington as a source of broader strategic risk.
Ultimately, the refinery strikes reveal that the politics of support is inseparable from the politics of restraint. Whether through restrictions on long-range strikes or pressure to avoid targeting Russian energy infrastructure, successive US administrations have attempted to shape not only how much support Ukraine receives but also how that support is used.
The real continuity between Biden and Trump lies not in their specific policies. It’s about their shared assumption that Washington retains a legitimate role in defining the acceptable limits of Ukrainian military action.
And this is the challenge for American foreign policy, particularly in the Trump era. The more the US withdraws from a shared understanding of interests with its allies, the more it will find that it becomes harder to control them.
David J. Galbreath has received funding from the UKRI.