Ukrainian president Volodmyr Zelenskyy has described his eventful relationship with Donald Trump as “emotional”.
The US president has all-but demolished his alliance with Ukraine in recent weeks by unveiling a sanctions-busting diesel deal with Russia, effectively giving Vladimir Putin’s war machine a boost.
The move unpicked years of united Western efforts to punish Putin for invading Ukraine back in 2022.
Trump also unilaterally declared an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, and then ignored Putin’s ongoing attacks.
Kyiv reported a brief disruption to the intelligence shared between the US and Ukraine during this period as well.
To add insult to injury, Trump has repeatedly called for Zelenskyy to be ousted as Ukraine’s president, claiming he was not interested in ending the war.
Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff described Putin – who is responsible for more than four years of “meat grinder” field tactics – a “humanitarian”.
Speaking to PBS’s News Hour, the Ukrainian president said his relationship with Trump is “emotional” when it needs to be “pragmatic”.
He said: “Sometimes, we need to be pragmatic in this war. Who is an enemy? Who began this war? Putin.
“Don’t find good words to describe him. I’m not sure that it will be helpful.”
Zelenskyy also pointed out that the US-Russia diesel deal will not actually influence prices in the States, despite Trump’s desperation to get American fuel prices down before the US midterms.
“If we speak about pragmatic things, we have to support Ukraine because it has to be strong, because, otherwise, Putin will go further to Europe and to the different parts of Nato countries,” he said.
“And, in this situation, America will decide difficult things,” Zelenskyy said. “It’s very dangerous. It’s very dangerous. So, better to make Ukraine stronger, because we are really defending Europe, not only ourselves. Better to push stronger on Putin, not on me, not on me. It’s not me who is aggressive. It’s not me.
“It’s emotional. That’s what I wanted to say.”
Trump once insisted that he could end the Ukraine war within the first 24 hours of his second term.
More than 18 months later, the conflict continues to rage – and the US administration’s main proposal is for Kyiv to capitulate and hand over more land to Moscow.
Meanwhile, Russia has continued to launch brutal attacks on Ukraine.
Shortly after the PBS interview, Zelenskyy confirmed that a Russian strike had killed at least 26 people in southern Ukraine.
Ukraine also reports that Russia was behind a huge cyber attack on its banking systems, pensions, social support – and that Kyiv hacked them back.
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