Trump Blasts Zelensky After Ukraine Says It Is 'Done' With Energy Cease-Fire
The president called Ukraine's refinery strikes 'a disgrace' as the energy truce he announced Sunday fell apart within days.
The energy cease-fire Trump announced on Sunday did not last the week.
According to the New York Post, Trump announced that both Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to refrain from striking each other's power sources with winter approaching. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says his country honored the deal unilaterally while Russia launched more than 100 attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure over the past week. Speaking to the Financial Times in London on Thursday, Zelensky said the arrangement was over. "The block is out. We're done," he said.
Trump responded in a Thursday interview with Newsmax host Rob Finnerty. "If you tell me that Zelensky is again shooting at refineries, all he's doing is making the world oil price higher," the president said. "I think that's a disgrace. There's plenty of other targets." He called Zelensky "not a good guy for us to deal with" and said, "I find Zelenskyy to be more difficult to deal with than Putin." Trump added that he thinks both leaders "would like to see it end."
The spat follows what the Post describes as a brief period of warming relations between the two men. On Friday, Zelensky attended a summit of European heads of government in Brussels, praising attendees as "real leaders."
Behind the exchange is the White House push to end the four-and-a-half-year-old invasion. The Post reports the administration believes its current course, including a recently announced deal for Russian diesel, is still the best route to peace. Officials say the diesel agreement is meant to be a carrot that brings Putin back to the table.
Oil prices are the other thread. Trump's argument is that strikes on Russian refineries push the global price of oil higher, which hits American drivers. Ukraine's argument is that it is defending itself against repeated attacks on its own power grid.
Both of those things can be true, and neither side seems willing to give ground yet. The test of the administration's strategy will be whether it can produce a durable truce before winter makes the stakes worse.