Zelenskyy Counters Trump: Putin, Not Ukraine, Blocking Peace

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushed back hard against accusations from Donald Trump that Ukraine was the obstacle to peace. The previous night, Russian missiles and drones had struck again—hitting energy infrastructure, a medical clinic, a school, a metro station, and apartment buildings across the country. What made it worse, Zelenskyy said, was that the warning never came. No alert from American intelligence. No heads-up from partners who were supposed to have his back.

The tension between Zelenskyy and Trump had been building for days. Over the weekend, Trump had posted on Truth Social that Zelenskyy "doesn't want to end this war, and probably never did." Trump argued that Ukraine's leader could have negotiated better two years ago, that the country was now in ruins, that territory was lost, and that the male population had been decimated. It was a brutal framing—one that cast the Ukrainian president as either unwilling or incapable of making peace. But Zelenskyy's response was direct: Ukraine had taken every diplomatic opening its partners offered. The problem was not Kyiv's reluctance. It was Moscow's refusal to stop fighting.

Behind the public quarrel lay a more concrete grievance. Zelenskyy had accused the Trump administration of throttling the flow of intelligence to Ukraine and delaying critical military supplies. He specifically cited problems with Starshield, an upgraded version of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system designed to help Ukrainian forces shoot down Russian drones. On Saturday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine still could not access Starshield. He also claimed the Pentagon was holding up shipments of vital equipment, though he did not detail which supplies or why.

The Trump administration denied the charges. A senior Pentagon official told CBS News there had been "no change" to intelligence sharing policy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was more evasive. When asked if the U.S. was responsible for slowdowns in Starlink service, he said he was "not sure Zelenskyy knows what he's talking about," but that any reduction "wasn't deliberate." He then offered a cryptic explanation: "The United States—nobody ordered that Starlink speed to be slowed down. It sort of happened, but my understanding is it's been restored." He did not explain what "it sort of happened" meant. Ukraine's top diplomat in Washington, Denys Sienik, said the country had received no response from the Pentagon or SpaceX confirming that speeds had been restored or that Starshield was working as before.

The backdrop to this dispute was Trump's broader shift in Russia policy. Over the previous month, the president had rolled back sanctions on Moscow that had enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. The stated goal was to lower U.S. gas prices by allowing Russian energy sales to resume. Zelenskyy saw it differently. He argued that easing pressure on Russia while cutting off Ukraine's access to intelligence and weapons was a form of surrender disguised as pragmatism. "When the supply of missiles to Ukrainian air defense is blocked, and Russia receives a weakening or postponement of sanctions, this is, unfortunately, a denial of reality from partners," he said.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin was playing a different game. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow welcomed U.S. mediation efforts. But there was a catch: Russia wanted to negotiate without Ukraine at the table. The Wall Street Journal had reported that Putin proposed a summit involving only the United States, China, and Russia to discuss solutions to the war. The meeting would exclude Kyiv entirely. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha warned that such a trilateral gathering would only encourage Putin to keep fighting. The message was clear: any peace deal negotiated without Ukraine's participation would not be a peace deal Ukraine would accept.

What had emerged was a three-way standoff. Trump was pushing for a quick resolution and had begun rewarding Russia with sanctions relief. Zelenskyy insisted that Russia was the one refusing to de-escalate, and that American pressure on Ukraine—through intelligence cutoffs and supply delays—was undermining his country's ability to defend itself. And Putin was signaling he would negotiate, but only on terms that excluded the country being invaded. The war that had raged for four and a half years showed no signs of ending. The only thing accelerating was the diplomatic breakdown.