Zelensky says he feels betrayed by Trump after Russia fuel deal
By Sana Noor Haq, Jim Sciutto, CNN
(CNN) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he felt betrayed after US President Donald Trump announced a new deal to buy Russian fuel from Moscow last week.
When asked by British media personality Piers Morgan if he had been “betrayed” by the Trump administration, Zelensky answered, “Yes,” describing the agreement as a “simple victory” for the Kremlin.
“It’s a pity that we are losing a strong partner,” the Ukrainian president told Morgan on Wednesday during his YouTube talk show, “Piers Morgan Uncensored.”
Last week, Trump wrote on social media that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin agreed to supply markets with his country’s diesel fuel as the US president works to bring down energy costs ahead of the midterm elections. That move drew bipartisan criticism and sparked anger among European allies.
On Monday, Russian forces launched fresh attacks on Ukraine just hours after the US president stated an “energy ceasefire” had come into effect – a measure that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had publicly confirmed.
In a clip shared on X from the interview with Morgan, the Ukrainian president said: “This is our country, our body, our home, our children… That’s why it’s painful when Trump chooses one side.”
“If you’re in the middle, you have to stay in the middle. Not on the wrong side,” said Zelensky. “This is not the right side of history.”
“Russia wants him (Trump) to be weak,” he added. “They don’t care about elections in the United States.”
Both Russian and Ukrainian troops have intensified aerial attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks, as movements on the battlefield remain relatively stagnant.
The Trump administration had warned Ukraine and allies in Europe that the US could suspend intelligence sharing and European purchases of US weapons for Kyiv if it did not halt deep strikes on Russian energy facilities.
Information sharing is invaluable to Ukrainian defense efforts against Russian ballistic missile attacks by giving the locations of missile launchers along with data on where the strikes are being directed, and when.
In the days that followed, Trump administration officials, including the president, insisted such intelligence sharing continued. But what explained the lack of missile warnings?
When asked by Kyiv for an explanation, US officials blamed the weather. But Ukrainian officials suspected it was deliberate. “America says it was a failure,” a European official told CNN. “But it can’t be the truth.”
“This will give Russians a real leverage on a frontline at the time when we effectively stopped their advances, and de-occupy the territories,” a Ukrainian official told CNN.
‘People will die’
That information deficit has been compounded by Elon Musk’s Starlink curbing some internet services in Ukraine, according to local officials. Ukrainian authorities said they were caught off-guard by restrictions on the military-grade version of Elon Musk’s Starlink, called Starshield.
Zelensky claimed Russian forces were trying to capitalize on the Starlink disruption by unleashing heavy strikes overnight, telling Morgan that Ukrainian forces use the software to defend against Moscow’s jet-powered Shahed drones.
“It’s a big mistake,” he said during the interview on Wednesday. “This decision will bring a lot of human losses… People will die,” Zelensky said. “My message (to Musk) is absolutely clear. I hope it’s a mistake, a huge technical problem. We’re asking (him) to switch on (the service).”
Musk on Wednesday said Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government and that any limits on its speed or usage are up to the US military and president. He added that Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX and is limited to civilian or defensive activities.
Musk said Starlink “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
Zelensky has spent the past week trying to shore up support among European leaders. On Wednesday, he met Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham and King Charles over two separate meetings in London – just as he Kremlin fired drones and ballistic miles that left more than 600,000 people in Ukraine without power, according to Zelensky.
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