Ukraine says it hits 2 major Russian oil refineries hours after Zelenskyy's meeting with Trump

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces hit two of Russia’s biggest oil refineries overnight in its latest long-range strikes, officials said, as Kyiv deepened its economic, military and diplomatic pressure on Moscow.

Ukraine’s almost daily long-range drone and missile strikes using domestically developed weapons have battered Russian oil facilities for months. The operation has brought a fuel crisis that is embarrassing the Kremlin more than four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor.

The overnight attacks started fires at a Lukoil refinery in Russia’s Perm region, more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) from Ukraine, and a refinery in Ryazan, about 400 kilometers (180 miles) from the border, Ukraine’s Security Service and General Staff said in separate statements.

The refineries have a combined annual production capacity of around 30 million tons of oil, according to Ukraine, and make a vital contribution to Russia's military effort and its government revenue.

It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claims. Ryazan Gov. Pavel Malkov said only that six people were taken to hospital after a drone attack. He said drone debris caused fires at unidentified “industrial sites.”

Russian online retailer Wildberries, a major supplier likened to Amazon that Ukraine has targeted in recent days, said it evacuated employees from a facility in Ryazan but provided no further details.

Russia has sophisticated air defenses but its vast territory is hard to comprehensively cover.

The attacks came hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington on Tuesday for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump to push for more vital American help for Ukraine’s fight against its much bigger enemy.

“Russia must feel that every day of this war will only come at a higher cost for it. We need to weaken the aggressor and keep up the pressure to bring an end to this war closer,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

Ukraine’s recent high-profile successes against Russia have impressed Washington and helped restore U.S. goodwill after Trump’s reluctance at the start of his second term to keep supporting Kyiv. That stance had raised the specter of Ukraine and Europe having to stand up to Russian aggression alone.

Zelenskyy said he had a “good meeting” with the American president, and Trump described the meeting as a “Great Honor.” The talks took place behind closed doors.

“Many things were discussed. The meeting went very well!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Zelenskyy said he also had a meeting in Washington with representatives of both parties in the U.S. Senate, with more than 60 senators in attendance, as Ukraine pushes for more sanctions on Russia. He also met with representatives of Lockheed Martin, days after he welcomed a delegation from Raytheon to Kyiv.

The U.S. weapons manufacturers are a crucial source of sophisticated weaponry, such as Patriot air defense systems, that Ukraine hopes to make itself. Trump said earlier this month he would grant Ukraine licenses to manufacture the Patriots it needs to counter Russia’s ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy says Ukraine is discussing joint production and technology exchange with both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

Ukraine is ready to share its cutting-edge — and battle-tested — drone technology. Its swift technical innovation has paid dividends as it helps pin down Russia’s bigger army on the front line and denies it supplies by hitting rear areas.

That has impressed countries around the world. Matthew Whitaker, the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, said during a visit to Ukraine earlier this week: “From reconnaissance and logistics to precision strikes, Ukraine has shown the world how unmanned systems can give smaller forces a decisive edge.”

Prospects for a settlement to stop the fighting appear dim, despite a yearlong diplomatic push by the Trump administration.

But U.S. officials also agreed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s main envoys, would make a trip to Kyiv sometime in the future, according to a person familiar with the talks who was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.

Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, the new commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military, said in a social media post on Wednesday that he had held his first phone conversation with Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander of U.S. European Command.

“I outlined my vision of Ukraine’s victory and the capabilities required to achieve it,” said Drapatyi, who was appointed last week as part of a government reshuffle.

“At this stage of the war, we must strengthen operations across multiple domains, prevent enemy infiltration into our defensive lines, and expand both long-range and medium-range precision strikes against the enemy,” he added.

Ukrainian units also have struck 201 Russian vessels over the past three weeks in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, which border both countries, a senior military official said.

The tally doesn’t include vessels hit by Ukraine’s Security Service and other military groups, a Ukrainian military commander who uses only the call sign Magyar, in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military, said late Tuesday.

Ukrainian forces also struck a naval base used Russia’s Black Sea, according to the General Staff.

It reported other strikes on a radar station in Russia’s Bryansk region on the border and on a drone launch site and a road bridge in the occupied part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported Wednesday that its air defenses shot down 295 Ukrainian drones overnight above a number of Russian regions and occupied Crimea.

Russian glide bombs struck the northeastern city of Kharkiv and 17 other places in the region of the same name over the previous 24 hours, wounding 11 people, the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, said.

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, is joined by from left: Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, and Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting of bipartisan leaders of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol with from left: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., following a meeting of bipartisan leaders of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stands with a bipartisan group of Senators in the Capitol building, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is joined by from left: Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sen. Katie Boyd Britt, R-Ala., Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, as he arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a meeting of bipartisan leaders of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — Firefighters in southwest France battled an uncontained wildfire four times the size of Paris on Wednesday as temperatures were forecast to reach 40 C (104 F), threatening to turn a calm night into only a brief reprieve.

Authorities in the Gironde region said the blaze had not spread overnight, but rising heat and afternoon winds could revive smoldering hot spots, carry embers across firebreaks and open new fronts beyond crews’ reach.

At the command center in Lège, firefighters bent over maps spread across a car hood, tracking three danger zones: northern Cap-Ferret; the wooded corridor around Marcheprime, Cestas and Saint-Jean-d’Illac; and a military site near Martignas, where a major outbreak forced a large deployment.

More than 2,200 firefighters and over 20 aircraft remained mobilized, backed by crews from across France and European partners.

“We strike quickly and strike hard at any new smoke emissions,” Gironde fire commander Matthieu Jomain said.

The advance of major fires in the Landes and Var regions have been halted. That left Gironde as France’s biggest remaining wildfire battle, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.

The Gironde fire forced 220,000 people to flee at the peak of the crisis. Tens of thousands have since been allowed home, but authorities warned that the danger had not passed.

Extreme heat strips moisture from vegetation and drives down humidity, turning grasses, brush and forest litter into faster-burning fuel.

Météo-France said Wednesday would be the hottest and driest day of the week, with elevated wildfire danger across every region of France. Drought now covers mainland France and Corsica, with soils nearing the record dryness reached in August 2022.

Smoke from the Gironde and Landes fires also pushed particulate pollution higher across both departments, regional air-quality monitors said.

Gironde authorities ordered 4,000 more people out of tourist sites along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday, widening what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation.

“The situation remains complicated. That’s clear. We’re not out of the woods,” said Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who also authorized 60,000 evacuees to return to three Bordeaux suburbs untouched by fire.

The opposing movements — thousands ordered out of coastal resorts as others returned with mobile phones on and emergency bags packed — captured how precarious the situation remains.

The disruption was spreading beyond the burn zone into Bordeaux’s peak tourism season.

Edouard le Grix de la Salle, who runs Château du Grand Verdus with his brother, said official appeals to avoid the region threatened its wine-tourism trade. “How did they not think about protecting that sector?” he told The Associated Press.

At the height of the crisis, roughly 330,000 people were driven from homes and vacation sites across France and Spain.

Tens of thousands of people began returning home in central Spain after firefighters made progress around Madrid and Ávila. Evacuation orders were lifted for about 20,000 people in the Madrid region, while stay-at-home restrictions ended for another 14,000.

But 10,000 people remain under evacuation orders in Castellón, where a fire was still out of control as Spain braced for its fourth heat wave of the summer.

At one point the Gironde blaze created a black thundercloud, electrified and lit from within, that generated lightning, violent winds and new fires beyond the original front. The pyrocumulonimbus was the first recorded in France.

More than 1,160 square kilometers (448 square miles) have burned across France this year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, warming at more than twice the global average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus climate service. Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record, with extreme heat and widespread dryness contributing to the spread and intensification of fires in France and Spain, Copernicus said.

Adamson reported from Paris. Suman Naishadham in Madrid and John Leicester and Masha Macpherson in Paris contributed.

A fire burns in a forest near Claouey, during wildfires in southwestern France, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

A car burned by a wildfire sits in Piedralaves, Ávila province, Spain, as the fire continues to spread, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Firefighters use controlled burning to halt a wildfire that continues to spread near Cebreros, Ávila province, Spain, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Firefighters battle a blaze outside Lanton, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

A De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 drops fire retardant over a forest near Saint-Jean-d'Illac, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)

Firefighters battle a blaze outside Lanton, during wildfires in southwestern France, Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)