Ukraine will double down on attacking Russian oil refineries in response to a new policy of air strikes by Moscow designed to force people to abandon Kiev and other cities, but will not target civilians, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
Ukraine's intelligence services has obtained documents showing that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had issued a "new doctrine" of military attacks on a much broader range of civilian targets ahead of this winter, Zelenskyy claimed on Saturday.
"We saw documents and we know that they allow them to attack infrastructure, logistics, and especially to attack in the cities, in the villages, everywhere, roads, schools, hospitals," Zelenskyy told Reuters in an interview.
"To pressure people to leave the capital, leave different cities: this is the goal of the operation."
Driving the shift in policy, Zelenskyy said, was Putin's desire to appear strong at a time when his military was losing ground in a key frontline region and sustaining higher levels of casualties.
The Kremlin was not available to comment.
Russia urges foreigners to leave Kiev
But in a statement urging foreign nationals to leave Kiev, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow would continue to systematically hit targets in what it said were retaliatory strikes for Ukrainian attacks on Russia in recent months.
Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians.
Zelenskyy said a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, code-named "Vivaldi", had recaptured around 140 sq km of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and was still ongoing.
Russia has said it must control Donbass in its entirety as a condition for any peace deal.
In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump's administration has sought to revive talks to end the four-year-old conflict – Europe's bloodiest since World War Two.
The US leader last month urged Ukraine to refrain from hitting Russian oil installations, saying that was sending global diesel prices surging.
But Zelenskyy, speaking as air raid sirens blared outside the gilded halls of the presidential offices, said he had received no indications from Russia that Putin was interested in peace talks, or discussing a ceasefire on energy infrastructure.
Over the past week, the Ukrainian capital has come under persistent attack by Russian drones and missiles targeting energy and telecoms assets, road and rail infrastructure.
For the first time, Russia has targeted the bridges across the Dnipro river connecting east and west Kiev.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would react to the change in tactics by Moscow, but would not target civilian infrastructure indiscriminately.
"We have to respond in any way (we can). With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy. First of all, oil refiners etc: what gives money to them for this war," Zelenskyy said in English.
"But we will not respond, of course, just like them, on any civilian objects."
