(Oct 19): Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Donald Trump of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering to Russia, escalating a week-long row with the US president.

In an interview with Bloomberg in Kyiv, Zelenskyy also offered a new proposal to accede to Trump’s request to stop targeting Russian refineries, which was aimed at combating high diesel prices, in exchange for deliveries of more Patriot air-defence missiles.

“Now, we have dangerous days ahead of the elections,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday, referring to the Nov 3 midterms in the US. “My latest model was: We don’t target Russian diesel, you give us missiles for Patriot systems to protect our facilities. But they just want us to stop attacking diesel. And if we strike that, they will disconnect us from something.”

While offering an off-ramp from the escalating row, Kyiv is likely to be unsettled by a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and China’s Xi Jinping next month to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. 

As relations between the US and Ukraine reached a new low, Zelenskyy laid out what he said were a series of unfriendly moves by Washington towards Kyiv. Those include the deliberate slowing of Starlink internet speeds, which are crucial for Ukrainian troops fighting Russia, and delaying already scarce deliveries of Patriot interceptors for ballistic missiles, which have become a nightmare for Ukrainian cities, he said on Sunday in the interview.

“I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate,” Zelenskyy said. “I am not saying that this is the goal our partners are pursuing. I don’t want to think that our American partners believe the war” against Russia “could be ended sooner at Ukraine’s expense. But that’s how it looks”.

Kyiv came under a Russian ballistic missile attack late on Sunday that killed at least one person, according to local authorities. Preliminary information indicated that a missile hit a medical centre, they said. 

Once again, the US did not share any early warning with Ukraine about the launch, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing security issues. Without that warning, it’s harder for Ukraine to repel the attack, as well as to alert civilians with enough time for them to proceed to shelters.

Tensions between Ukraine and the US reached a nadir after Trump struck a deal with Putin under which Washington would refrain from further tightening sanctions on Russia in exchange for Moscow supplying limited volumes of diesel to the global market to curb rising prices. Trump sparked blowback from members of his own party when he said late last Friday he would waive part of a new Russia sanctions law named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

Trump said later on Sunday that he went ahead with the diesel export deal and sanctions waiver because he doesn’t want to drive Putin away from peace talks, while asserting that Zelenskyy wanted to prolong the war.

“He doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” Trump wrote of Zelenskyy. “He could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now. His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead. I want this war end!”

Asked directly about the WSJ’s report of a trilateral meeting among Putin, Xi and Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “I think there’s been talks of a meeting” but nothing has been finalised.

The US president is open to anything he can do to bring an end to the conflict and wants diplomatic efforts involving Russia and Ukraine to advance. “No one is winning that war,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Uzbekistan.

When asked at a regular press briefing in Beijing about the report, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said she had no information to share.

“I think that the president of the US does have a good relationship with Putin,” Zelenskyy said, speaking before the WSJ story was published. “But one thing doesn’t work here. Currently, Trump can’t force Putin to end the war.”

Zelenskyy said that relations with Washington may improve after the US midterm elections.

“Politics is very aggressive during election time,” he said. “I think it is agony now, but after elections, life will continue and I believe it will be calmer.”

The US has demanded that Kyiv stop striking Russia’s oil refineries. The Trump administration has argued that those attacks have contributed to high energy prices, particularly for diesel, even though global supplies have been much more significantly affected by the US war with Iran. Ukraine has said it’s ready to halt strikes on refineries if Russia refrains from attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. 

Both sides, however, have continued to target energy facilities, with Ukraine resuming strikes after pausing for several days to see if Russia would adhere to the “energy ceasefire” announced by Trump. Ukraine said Russian forces hit substations over the weekend, leaving tens of thousands of families without power, while Russia battled fires at the St Petersburg oil terminal and other industrial facilities.  

Zelenskyy spoke after Ukraine complained that SpaceX, the US-based company owned by Elon Musk, slowed Starlink internet speeds in Ukraine. The satellite internet service is crucial for Ukraine’s troops and has been one of the country’s key battlefield advantages in its war against Russia, now in its fifth year.

Asked who ordered the move, Zelenskyy pointed to “the authorities, the White House”, citing “sources” he didn’t identify. He said that Starlink internet connections cut out at speeds above 161 kilometres (100 miles) per hour in Ukraine, while beyond the country it works without any limitations. Russian drones are travelling at around 400 kilometres per hour. 

Zelenskyy also said the US is delaying deliveries of interceptors for Patriot air-defence systems used to shoot down Russia’s ballistic missiles, which inflict the heaviest damage on infrastructure in Ukrainian cities. 

“We have paid for the weapons” including anti-ballistic missiles under the so-called PURL programme, Zelenskyy said. “A part of the supplies has been authorised” by the US side, “while the rest haven’t been. And this is not a technical issue”.

The US is currently supplying Ukraine with only 12 Patriot interceptor missiles a month, roughly a quarter of the pace under the Joe Biden administration, Zelenskyy said. Under Trump, the US is selling those missiles to Ukraine, while Biden was providing them for free as military assistance.

In the meantime, Zelenskyy remains in close contact with Trump’s key envoys for Ukrainian peace talks, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, saying on Sunday that they are discussing another meeting, likely later this week. The trio had already met in Kyiv in early September. Back then, Kushner and Witkoff first went to Moscow for talks with Putin before making their first visit to Ukraine for negotiations with Zelenskyy. 

The stand-off with the US comes at the worst possible moment for Ukraine, as the country braces for an exceptionally challenging winter. 

Russia’s use of jet-powered drones, coupled with a severe shortage of interceptors, has left Ukraine increasingly vulnerable to airstrike surges, undermining public morale. The country is already enduring hours-long blackouts, while its largest cities are bracing for even worse disruptions, including potential cut-offs of heating, water supplies and sewage.  

Asked how he would describe efforts to repair relations with the US, Zelenskyy said, “I think that when the potential risks for Ukraine are of tsunami proportions, one should intervene while it’s still just a mild storm. I believe much more is at stake than the diesel deal.”

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