President Donald Trump has taken a harder line with Russian President Vladimir Putin than many in Ukraine expected, pressuring him to reach a deal with Ukraine to end the war.
Attacks from both sides appear to be intensifying. Russia has stepped up air attacks on Ukraine, often sending dozens of drones in a single night. A Russian drone assault on the Kyiv region overnight left at least three dead after a strike on an apartment building that ignited a fire across multiple floors.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is stepping up a campaign to cripple Moscow's war machine, targeting key military and industrial facilities. Ukrainian special forces struck one of Russia's largest oil refineries, about 300 miles north of the border with Ukraine.
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Oil — and the money it generates — fuels Russia's war effort. Ukraine's strategy appears to be to choke that revenue stream to undermine Moscow's capacity to wage war.
President Trump appears to also be focused on oil as a potential lever against Putin. Thursday he called on OPEC to lower global oil prices, arguing that a drop in revenue would pressure Russia to end the conflict.
"If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately," Trump said in comments to the World Economic Forum. "Right now the price is high enough that that war will continue. You've got to bring down the oil price, you've got to end that war."
But so far Putin is holding firm to demands that Ukraine capitulate and a pro-Moscow regime replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
