Zelensky responded to Washington, which reacted negatively to the strikes on Russian refineries

The strikes on Russian oil refineries did not please Washington. They asked Kiev to refrain from continuing the attacks, explaining that Russia might retaliate by shelling Ukrainian energy facilities more actively, and the USA said that such a practice might affect world oil prices. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Washington Post.

But Washington cannot limit Ukraine's use of weapons of its own production. We used our drones. No one can tell us that we can't do that," the Ukrainian president said.

He added that Kiev has no other choice as Russian Federation is trying to finish off the Ukrainian power grid.

If there is no air defence to protect our energy system and the Russians are attacking it, my question is: why can't we answer them? Their society has to learn to live without petrol, without diesel, without electricity. ... That's fair enough. When Russia stops these steps, we will stop," Zelensky emphasised.

The Ukrainian president also said that the Ukrainian Defence Forces are in dire need of ATACM-300 long-range missiles, which, he said, can hit targets in Russia-occupied Crimea, in particular airfields from which Russia launches planes with precision-guided missiles that the Russians use to hit Ukraine.

When Russia has missiles and we don't, they attack everything with missiles: gas pipelines, energy, schools, factories, civilian buildings. ATACM-300s are the answer," Zelensky said.

He stressed that Ukraine plans to use longer-range missiles not to attack Russian territory, but to strike Crimea, particularly the airports.

When Russia knows that we can destroy these aircraft, they will not attack from Crimea. It's like with the naval fleet. We drove them out of our territorial waters. Now we will drive them out of Crimea's airports," he said.