President Trump lashed out at his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in a Thursday TV interview after Zelensky said Ukraine was “done” honoring Trump’s demand to hold off on striking Russian energy sites.
“If you tell me that Zelensky is again shooting at refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher,” the president told Newsmax host Rob Finnerty. “I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets.”
Trump also described Zelensky as “not a good guy for us to deal with” as the White House tries to resurrect attempts to end the four-and-a-half-year-old invasion of eastern Europe by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I think they actually both would like to see it end,” the president added, “but I think I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.”
After Trump announced Sunday that both Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to refrain from striking each other’s power sources with winter approaching, Zelensky claimed that his country unilaterally honored the deal while Moscow launched more than 100 attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the past week.
“The block is out,” Zelensky told the Financial Times Thursday while visiting London. “We’re done.”
Moments later, Pavel Malkov, the governor of Russia’s Ryazan province, reported that Ukrainian drone strikes hit a state oil company building, sparking a fire.
Amid the latest spat with Trump, which followed a brief period of warm relations between the two, Zelensky attended a summit of European heads of government in Brussels Friday, thanking who he called “real leaders” for their support.
“We want to end this war as [quickly] as possible,” the Ukrainian president insisted to reporters in the Belgian capital. “We don’t see now signals from Russian side that they are ready for this, to end this war. That’s why we have to prepare for the winter.”
In response to Trump’s Thursday night comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov agreed Friday that “Zelensky doesn’t want to take responsibility and move toward a peaceful resolution.”
Meanwhile, Russian strikes were reported in nine separate regions of Ukraine Friday, wounding at least 15 people and leaving hundreds of thousands of households without power. Separately, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted 644 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions, as well as Crimea and the Black Sea.
The war of words between Trump and Zelensky began last week, when the US president announced a deal to purchase more than 2.25 million barrels of diesel from Russia to try and bring down fuel prices that have spiked due to the war with Iran.
An outraged Zelensky told Axios the deal “looks like a happy birthday present” for Putin before accusing US military officials of threatening to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine about Russian airstrikes if Kyiv didn’t go along with Trump’s moratorium.
White House sources, however, told The Post that Putin understood that the cease-fire only covered oil refineries — and not the power plants Moscow has been bombing.
The sources suggested that Zelensky was purposefully expanding the interpretation of the limited cease-fire to claim Russia broke it first, ultimately undermining both the deal and Trump himself.
Trump has denied that Washington ever cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, but tensions flared further when Kyiv’s access to the Starshield military satellite system was abruptly interrupted on Tuesday.
The American satellite network, a secure military offshoot of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system, allows Ukraine to track and intercept high-speed attacks and to guide long-range attacks into Russia.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday pointed the finger at the Pentagon and the White House for the interference. A senior US official denied to The Post on Thursday that the president had restricted Ukraine’s Starshield access. The Pentagon has not responded to the claim.
By Thursday morning, Ukrainian officials said Starshield access had been restored.
Despite the criticism from Zelensky, the Trump administration believes the president’s current course of action, including the Russian diesel deal, is still the best way to secure peace in Ukraine.
Officials claimed the deal would effectively serve as a carrot to get Putin back to the negotiating table and lay the groundwork for a lasting peace.
With Post wires
