The US has threatened to shut down the PURL scheme that arms Ukraine unless Kyiv stops striking Russian oil refineries, the Financial Times reported on October 11, citing European officials.
US officials phoned European capitals and Kyiv on October 10 and 11 to press for an end to the attacks on Russian refineries, according to officials in Europe who took the calls or were briefed on them. The White House declined to confirm or comment on the calls, the paper said.
PURL, the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, is Ukraine's main route to US-made air defence. Allies pay for weapons from a priority list drawn up by Kyiv and agreed with the US and Nato, and about 95% of the Patriot interceptors Ukraine receives, including PAC-3 missiles, now arrive through it, the Ukrainian defence ministry said in July. Closing it would leave Ukraine's cities more exposed to Russian ballistic missiles as winter approaches, after a summer in which Kyiv's interceptor missiles run dry.
Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s former HUR spy master and now the head of the presidential administration who was meeting the US delegation in Miami the day Trump announced the diesel deal was in shock. Reported he lost his temper and told the US side “then we will burn everything. We will burn all the refineries.”
PURL money is spent overwhelmingly on interceptors, and Europe cannot make PAC-3s itself. If Washington is serious about closing the scheme, Ukraine loses its supply of new Patriot missiles at the moment Russia is stepping up its bombardment. Kyiv’s interceptor stocks already ran dry over the summer.
The capital was hit again on October 11. A Shahed drone struck a power plant in Kyiv, cutting power to many districts, Zelenskiy told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Hours after Trump’s ceasefire post, Russia then struck the CHP-5 combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv. City authorities had already told Kyivans to stock three days of food and water after attacks earlier in the week, as IntelliNews reported.
"This would severely weaken Ukraine's defences against Russian ballistic missiles, since PURL is its main source of Patriot interceptors," military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady wrote on X.
As the US backs off from supporting Ukraine, the EU stepped up its support again as the most serious break between Kyiv and Washington of the war unfolded.
The EU will pay Ukraine a tranche of about €3bn this week from its €90bn support loan, Zelenskiy said on October 11 after a call with von der Leyen. Von der Leyen said the money would “strengthen Ukraine’s defences and protect its skies”. It follows a €1.24bn tranche disbursed on October 7. But euros cannot buy Patriot missiles that Washington will not release.
The PURL scheme was launched in July 2025. By July this year 29 countries had paid in $6.7bn and funded more than ten packages of about $500mn each, led by Norway, the Netherlands and Germany. The money is European and Canadian, but the weapons are American and the US decides when they ship.
The pressure lands in a week in which Trump eased sanctions on Russian diesel and said Ukraine should get a new president, and on the day he declared an immediate "energy ceasefire" between Russia and Ukraine that Kyiv said it had not been told about.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine would stop hitting Russian refineries if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine's energy system, and that the armed forces had received orders after Trump's announcement. Hours later Russia struck the CHP-5 combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv and a power station in Kyiv, he said, the Kyiv Post reported on October 12. "The question is whether Russia wants peace," Zelenskiy said.
The refinery campaign has hurt Moscow's war chest. President Vladimir Putin put its cost at about 1% of GDP at the start of October, and Russia's oil and gas budget revenues were down 17.2% y/y in the first nine months of the year.
The PURL threat comes a day after Trump declared an immediate “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine that no body knew about.
“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social on October 11. He gave no details of how it was agreed, what it covers or when it starts and Zelenskiy said he had not been informed of any deal. The Kremlin also offered no comment to confirm the annoucement.
“The ceasefire announcement was news for me. But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree,” Zelenskiy told Axios. Zelenskiy said Ukraine would stop hitting Russian refineries if Russia stopped attacking Ukraine’s energy system, and that the armed forces had received orders after Trump’s announcement.
The ceasefire caps a week in which Trump eased sanctions on Russian diesel and said Ukraine should get a new president. Kyiv’s delegation also flew home early from talks with US envoys in Miami, as bne IntelliNews reported.
Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev has since asked for sanctions relief in return for a deal and wants an energy truce linked to a Black Sea ceasefire, the Kyiv Independent reported on October 9. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner offered Moscow three things in return for a partial truce before winter, The New York Times reported on October 10:
- access to up to $100bn of frozen Russian reserves;
- a revived sale of Lukoil’s foreign assets;
- sanctions relief allowing Belarus to export potash.
Most of the frozen money is not Washington’s to give. The bulk of the more than €210bn of immobilised Russian central bank assets in the EU sits at Euroclear in Brussels.