From American threats to stop supporting Ukraine with intelligence information, to a diesel agreement that may help Russia finance its war, the past week was bad for relations between Kiev and Washington, its most important ally. Amid US President Donald Trump's dissatisfaction with rising energy costs, which he partly blames on Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries, he has repeatedly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The disruption of satellite Internet services provided by the United States has raised fears that Ukraine may become more vulnerable as it prepares for a new winter of Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Zelensky responded to Trump's criticism with an unusual series of sharp public statements, suggesting that the United States was leaning toward Russia's side. He said that Ukraine would ignore Trump's demand to stop targeting Russian energy facilities, pointing to the continuation of Russian attacks.
The widening gap of differences, as presented by Reuters in its analysis here, raised fears that the volatile relationship between Trump and Zelensky would lead to worse results for Kiev. Trump could still restrict arms supplies to Ukraine, carry out his threats to stop sharing battlefield intelligence, or conclude more economic agreements with Moscow.
Two Ukrainian officials familiar with the talks, who requested to remain anonymous, said that despite Zelensky's statements, Kiev wants to continue the dialogue with Trump's envoys, who are his friend Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Denis Sinyk, Chargé d'Affairs at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, told Newsmax on Friday that Kiev is grateful to Trump and his team for their efforts to end the war, and that it is ready to enter into talks with Russia. Trump told reporters on Friday that he would continue to deal with both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added: “I want this war to end.”
“missed opportunity”
Daniel Fried, the US State Department's top European affairs official between 2005 and 2009, said it was not clear whether Washington was headed toward a permanent change in its position toward Ukraine, but the fallout hurts the chances of ending the war that began with Russia's all-out invasion in 2022. Fried, who currently works at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, added: "It is not just a missed opportunity, but it is causing real suffering in Ukraine, and it encourages Putin." To continue the war, and therefore it is not without cost.
The relationship between Trump and Zelensky has long been tense. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance publicly criticized Zelensky during an Oval Office meeting in February 2025.
Washington stopped or slowed the provision of military aid to Ukraine during the Trump era, while allowing European allies to purchase American weapons for Kiev. The relationship stabilized until Ukrainian strikes this year on energy sites in Russia began contributing to rising fuel prices.
Analysts said that the rise in gasoline and diesel prices represents a political headache for Trump before the midterm elections scheduled for November, in which the Republican Party may lose its majority in the US Congress.
Experts say, according to a Reuters analysis, that the jump in energy costs is mainly due to the US-Israeli war with Iran, which led to Iranian attacks on energy facilities and largely caused the closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz. But a person familiar with internal discussions, who requested anonymity, said that Trump, frustrated with Zelensky, turned to Russia to increase fuel supplies and contain prices. Trump said on October 9 that he had reached an agreement with Putin to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian fuel and the import of Russian diesel.
Big risks for Ukraine
For Kiev, the risks are high and immediate. Zelensky said on Tuesday that Ukraine had not received any warning from Western partners before a bloody Russian attack on the capital. Without US intelligence, Ukraine may have more difficulty detecting and responding to Russian missile and drone attacks, especially those targeting the energy infrastructure that Moscow has been attacking over the past winters.
Trump said the United States was still providing intelligence to Ukraine. But Zelensky told NPR that US officials have informed Ukrainian military commanders that intelligence sharing may be reduced or stopped. Reuters reported on Thursday that the Ukrainian StarShield system, the military version of SpaceX's Starlink service, was disrupted after what two American officials and a knowledgeable Western official said was the result of an order issued by the White House.
Service was partially restored, but the incident highlighted the vulnerabilities resulting from Ukraine's reliance on technology controlled by American companies and subject to the decisions of the Trump administration. This reliance gives Trump a potential pressure tool, while pushing Kiev toward negotiations with Moscow.
Trump may face resistance if Republicans in Congress see his approach as weakening Ukraine while benefiting Russia. Ukraine still enjoys support among some Republicans, some of whom believe that Washington should not pressure Kiev to accept a settlement on terms that are in Moscow's interest.
Brett Bruin, a former foreign policy advisor in the Obama administration and president of the Global Situation Room consulting firm, said that Zelensky's strong responses to Trump entail risks, but he may be counting on a shift in the balance of power in Congress after the midterm elections, which will make it difficult for Trump to ease sanctions on Russia or reduce military aid to Kiev further. He continued, “Zelensky knows very well who he is dealing with. “Trump’s threats don’t have the same impact they did when J.D. Vance tried to embarrass him in the Oval Office.”
Ukraine is going through its “darkest moment”
German geopolitical expert, Clemens Fischer, believes that Ukraine is facing a desperate situation, after the US President stopped the new US sanctions package against Russia. The professor of international and geopolitical relations at the University of Cologne, Germany, said in statements to German radio “Deutschlandfunk”: “This is certainly the darkest moment that the Ukrainians have experienced in this war so far.” The expert stated that Trump did not provide Ukraine from the beginning with the support that Western countries had hoped for, and is now acting more stringently.
Referring to the midterm elections scheduled for next November 3 and the rise in energy costs as a result of the Iran war that Trump started in cooperation with Israel, Fisher said: “He now wants to try to quickly turn the results of the midterm elections in his favor, and he needs an enemy if the prices of diesel and gasoline rise at American gas stations... He has finally identified the enemy that he believes he can market, and so the whole situation has turned.”
Fischer explained, as reported by the German Agency, that Trump had not looked kindly toward Zelensky for a long time, after the latter refused in 2019 to provide evidence to Trump regarding alleged suspicious deals by Hunter Biden, the son of former US President Joe Biden, in Ukraine. That was “the first cell of this aversion,” Fisher said.
Fisher warned that the coming weeks could cause long-term damage to Ukraine, even if Trump returns to supporting it after the midterm elections, explaining that Ukraine depends on the United States by nearly 100 percent in the field of air defense, and he said: “Even in the field of attacks deep into Russian territory, they cannot do without American data.”
According to Ukrainian data, a temporary and unannounced reduction in the Internet service via the American “Starlink” satellite, which is used militarily and known as “Starshield,” last Tuesday-Wednesday night led to flying objects losing their connection when their speed exceeded 160 kilometers per hour.
It is believed that this led to the failure of Ukrainian drone operations, and the failure to confront Russian drones. “If the Americans do shut down Starshield service in the next two or three weeks, and Ukraine becomes less able to defend itself as a result, this could cause damage to Ukrainian defenses that cannot be easily recovered,” Fisher warned. Fisher likened it to illness, saying: “When a person recovers and stabilizes, it is at a low level.”
