Over the course of three days, Ukraine has bombarded Russian fuel facilities with a barrage of drones and missile strikes despite Donald Trump’s efforts to halt attacks on energy targets.

On Sunday morning, Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez in central Russia, one of country’s biggest oil refineries, was photographed ablaze after an Ukrainian attack.

Images of the fire at the plant in Nizhny Novgorod show leaping orange flames and grey smoke billowing into the sky from the damaged buildings.

Gleb Nikitin, governor of Nizhny Novgorod, said there had been a “massive drone attack” at an unnamed industrial facility which “sustained significant damage”.

It comes after two other significant hits on Russian oil facilities in the past three days, namely the Kamensky chemical plant and Bashneft refinery on Saturday and the Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Russia’s Samara Oblast region on Friday.

In total, these strikes affected 10 per cent of Russia’s oil refining capacity, according to Ukrainian monitoring group Dnipro Osint.

Friday’s attack marked the end of a two-week long pause in operations against fuel facilities in Russia, apparently in response to Trump’s demand for a ceasefire on strikes on energy infrastructure.

Before that, Ukraine had not hit any Russian refineries since 15 October amid significant pressure and threats from the Trump administration to comply with a suggested energy ceasefire.

On Thursday, reported that Ukraine’s military had unofficially paused its strikes on Russian oil facilities at the behest of Donald Trump – at least until the US midterm elections on 3 November.

But Ukrainian officials later said they had never agreed to a proposed hiatus and less than 24 hours after the report, the Novokuibyshevsk refinery had been hit.

Keir Giles, associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House, told The i Paper: “For whatever reason, Ukraine felt at some point that it had to accede to American demands to ease the pressure on Russia. And now it feels that it is less important to do so.”

He said the decision to resume attacks against Trump’s wishes will be the result of constant calculations behind the scenes about “how much it has to give in to American pressure”.

Trump had announced an energy ceasefire on 11 October, but this had not been agreed between Ukraine and Russia.

The US President is now thought to be even more desperate for Ukrainian attacks to halt due to the diesel deal he has secured with the Kremlin to allow imports of Russian oil into the US, especially considering his previous pledge to end the war within hours of taking office.

Giled added: “Even under the Biden administration, the US was pressuring Ukraine not to strike against the Russian energy refining industry. So this is not completely a Trump invention.

“It’s just [that] there’s more pressure to ease to give Russia an easier time under Trump than there was under Biden.”

It comes as Ukraine’s military reported the deadliest month on record for Russian troops, saying it had inflicted 54,400 casualties in October, the highest number since the beginning of the invasion in 2022.

The General Staff said: “Each month of the war is becoming increasingly costly for Russia’s armed forces.”

On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that the hits on the plant in Rostov, which produces rocket fuel for Russian weapons, had caused $70m worth of damage to air-defence assets.

“The Ukrainian military struck a Pantsir-S2 complex and a command-and-staff vehicle of the S-400 Triumf system,” Zelensky added.

The objectives of the Ukrainian long-range strike campaign have shifted over time according to assessments of what will give “a better return on investment”.

Indeed, on Saturday, Russia announced it would extend its export ban on diesel through to the end of January 2027, indicating it is worried about domestic supply.

Earlier this year, Russians were seen in long queues at petrol stations amid widespread shortages.

But the spectacular images and economic damage inflicted by the recent attacks may not discourage the Trump administration from pursuing “another completely fictitious claim of a ceasefire” in the future, Giles argued.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Russia continued its own strikes against Ukraine, leaving hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without power.

The trading blows come as peace talks are set to resume between the US, Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi next month.