President Zelensky met with Washington’s special envoy, and the US president blamed Ukrainian leaders for not wanting to end the war.
Published October 19, 2026
US President Donald Trump has defended sanctions waivers for Russia, saying he wants to bring Moscow to the negotiating table and accusing the Kiev president of not wanting to end the war in Ukraine.
President Trump made the comments on Truth Social on Sunday in response to criticism of his decision to block sanctions on Russia just days before they took effect.
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“My decision regarding Russia is very simple. I am negotiating peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and I don’t want to foolishly push Russia away from the negotiating table,” he said.
The move sparked significant diplomatic fallout over the past week between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Lifting sanctions against Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022, would have a “negative impact on Ukraine” and strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war effort, Zelensky said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“You cannot compare me with Putin. He is an aggressor. He occupied us. He killed adults, children and soldiers. He is a terrorist. That’s why I hope President Trump will make this position clear.”
President Trump reiterated his claim that President Zelenskiy does not want the war with his country to end, and said on Truth Social that Kiev is launching attacks on Russian diesel refineries even though it knows it is “severely hurting the global diesel market.”
“President Zelenskiy doesn’t care, and frankly, he doesn’t want to end this war and probably never will, even though Europe is famously giving to him,” Trump wrote.
President Trump announced on Oct. 9 that Russia plans to supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and global markets to combat rising fuel prices since the U.S. and Israel began their war against Iran in late February. With this move, the Iranian government effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s energy exports passed before the war.
President Trump’s acceptance of Russian energy has outraged Kiev as well as European partners and many U.S. officials, who say the move rewards Russia for continuing its four-and-a-half year war with Ukraine.
US-Ukraine negotiations continue
Ukraine’s president said on Sunday’s X broadcast that he met with U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as part of “virtually non-stop communication” between the two countries’ teams on “the next steps in diplomacy.”
“We are doing everything in our power to make this happen and to ensure that America’s position is strong and helps bring peace closer, which everyone except Russia has been waiting for for the past four and a half years,” President Zelenskiy wrote.
President Zelenskiy met with Mr. Vitkov and Mr. Kushner as Russia and Ukraine continued attacks on each other’s energy facilities, thousands of people lost power in Moscow, and St. Petersburg in Kiev suffered the largest drone attack on Russia since the start of the war.
