Following Ukraine's new strikes on Russian oil refineries, President Donald Trump told a television host on Thursday that he held an unfavourable view of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, adding that Ukraine bore responsibility for the destruction of the country. The remarks came days after Trump put forward an energy ceasefire proposal aimed at halting further attacks on energy infrastructure on both sides.
The truce arrangement carried little practical force, given that Russia had not signed on to its terms. Attacks against Russia were resumed at Zelensky's direction, even though Ukraine had been observing the terms of the arrangement up to that point.
Russian strikes on Kyiv continued for several days after Trump announced the energy ceasefire on Sunday. Trump separately told reporters that Zelensky was not someone he found easy to work with, and attributed the flow of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine to decisions made under the Biden administration.
Trump additionally placed responsibility on former President Barack Obama for what he described as a situation in which Ukraine was left without the means to prevent Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. On multiple occasions, Trump has cited Russia's takeover of Crimea as the point at which President Vladimir Putin concluded that Washington would not mount a forceful reply — a reading Trump uses to argue that Moscow lost its wariness of the United States.
Brokering an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict has absorbed a substantial portion of Trump's attention since he returned to office, yet a durable agreement has not materialised. Trump linked that outcome to the mutual antagonism between Putin and Zelensky, arguing that when two leaders hold deep grievances toward each other, the path toward any negotiated settlement narrows considerably.
In remarks attributed to him, Trump stated that Zelensky's participation in any peace settlement was unwarranted, pointing to what he described as Zelensky's unwillingness to reach an agreement, while also characterising negotiations with Zelensky as more challenging than those conducted with Putin. During the weekend, Trump made a public statement calling for Zelensky to step down from the presidency and for Ukrainian voters to be given the opportunity to select a new leader through a democratic vote.
Zelensky indicated that holding a presidential election would become possible under a two-month ceasefire arrangement with Russia. Russian officials have not altered their position on the proposal.
Disagreements between Trump and Zelensky have extended to the question of whether the United States curtailed Ukraine's access to intelligence sharing and to Starshield, the military-grade satellite network operated by SpaceX under its Starlink infrastructure. Restrictions on the flow of weapons reduced the scope of Ukraine's ability to intercept incoming strikes across its territory.
Elon Musk, who leads SpaceX, clarified that while his aerospace firm built the Starshield platform, operational control and ownership rest with the Department of Defense. Decisions about whether Starshield access for Ukraine faces any limitations rest with the Trump administration.
Three officials — two based in the United States and one from a Western government — told a broadcast news outlet on Thursday that the directive to restrict the satellite network originated at the presidential level. No order from Trump has been confirmed in connection with the decision.
Trump amplified the account of a Ukrainian woman who had spoken out against Zelensky, conveying her position that the president bore responsibility for the devastation visited upon the country, for the mobilisation of its men, and for the injuries many of those men had sustained. The statement attributed a pattern of psychiatric institutionalisation or death to men within the group, without offering evidence or qualification for that characterisation.
