A smile at the Brussels summit

On Friday, 16 October, Volodymyr Zelensky held a press conference in Brussels after the summit of EU leaders from the 27 member states. A correspondent from Sky News asked him whether he felt he was being made a scapegoat by Donald Trump for domestic problems ahead of the US midterm elections in November. Zelensky paused for 15 seconds and smiled, and the packed press room, full of journalists and diplomats, burst into laughter. He did not criticise Trump directly and did not offer a formal statement. He gave a short reply and walked away from the podium, ending the briefing.

“This is my answer.”

Before the summit he had stressed his ties with European partners rather than the dispute with the US administration. He thanked everyone working to keep Europe and the United States united. Asked about the tensions, he chose to focus on the support Ukraine receives from the European Council.

Trump's criticism and the energy truce

Trump criticised Zelensky again on Thursday, 15 October, in an interview with Newsmax, saying it is harder to work with Zelensky than with Vladimir Putin. He also said he was not a big fan of the Ukrainian president. These remarks followed a weekend in which Trump announced that Kyiv and Moscow had agreed not to attack each other's energy facilities. Trump argued that the war in Ukraine was pushing up diesel prices and said Zelensky's actions were raising world oil prices.

Ukraine had suspended strikes on Russian refineries for three days at the request of the United States. Kyiv resumed them after, according to adevarul.ro, Russia did not respect the energy truce that Trump had described. On Thursday, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil refinery after Zelensky said Kyiv was abandoning that truce, while Moscow kept attacking Ukraine's power and heating networks.

Zelensky said Ukraine had been hit by 1,000 drones on Thursday. He complained that the American side said it was difficult to deal with him while it was easier to manage Putin.

Diesel exports and sanctions

In early October the Trump administration struck a deal that allows exports of Russian diesel, a decision Zelensky said left him feeling betrayed. Trump has blamed the rise in fuel prices worldwide on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The US involvement in the war in Iran remains unpopular with a significant part of the American electorate, according to the same reporting.

HotNews.ro reported that Washington had already eased sanctions on Russian diesel deliveries. A US official cited by Reuters said on Wednesday, 14 October, that the administration was considering relaxing sanctions on so-called shadow fleet vessels that carried Russian oil and oil products. EU officials said they did not want to give up the measures taken against Moscow. According to G4Media, some Republican allies were also critical of Trump's conduct, accusing him of playing into the hands of Putin's regime. US restrictions on Starlink communications had also affected Ukrainian armed forces, but sources in Kyiv said those restrictions have since been lifted.

Negotiations and the sequence of events

Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine is in negotiations with the American negotiating team and that his own team is in constant contact with it. He expressed the belief that the two sides would agree on a new meeting in the coming days, at one level or another. The key steps in the dispute are set out below.

The sequence runs from Trump's weekend energy truce announcement, through the Thursday refinery strike and Newsmax interview, to the Friday press conference in Brussels.