Trump Calls Zelensky’s Rejection of Energy Truce a ‘Disgrace’ as Ukraine Resumes Refinery Strikes

President Trump said Thursday that Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries are “a disgrace,” attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a television interview that escalated the leaders’ public dispute.

“If you tell me that Zelensky is again shooting at refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher,” Trump told Newsmax host Rob Finnerty, according to the New York Post. “I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets.”

Trump also described Zelensky as “not a good guy for us to deal with” and said he finds the Ukrainian leader “more difficult to deal with than Putin,” as the White House tries to revive efforts to end the four-and-a-half-year war.

Zelensky declares the truce dead

The interview came hours after Zelensky told the Financial Times in London that Ukraine was done honoring the moratorium Trump had announced. “The block is out,” Zelensky said. “We’re done.”

Zelensky said Moscow had launched more than 100 attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the past week while Kyiv kept its side of the deal. Trump announced Sunday that both sides had agreed to refrain from striking each other’s power sources ahead of winter.

Shortly after Zelensky’s remark, Pavel Malkov, the governor of Russia’s Ryazan province, reported that Ukrainian drone strikes had hit a state oil company building and started a fire, according to the Post.

Strikes continue on both sides

Russian strikes were reported in nine Ukrainian regions on Friday. At least 15 people were wounded, and hundreds of thousands of households were left without power, the Post reported. Separately, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses had intercepted 644 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Zelensky attended a summit of European leaders in Brussels on Friday, where he thanked who he called “real leaders” for their support. “We want to end this war as [quickly] as possible,” he told reporters. “We don’t see now signals from Russian side that they are ready for this, to end this war. That’s why we have to prepare for the winter.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov responded that Zelensky did not want to move toward a peaceful resolution.

The dispute traces back to last week, when Trump announced a deal to buy more than 2.25 million barrels of diesel from Russia to bring down fuel prices. Zelensky told Axios the purchase “looks like a happy birthday present” for Putin and accused U.S. military officials of threatening to cut off intelligence sharing. Trump has denied that intelligence was ever cut. White House sources told the Post that Moscow understood the cease-fire to cover only oil refineries, not the power plants Russia continued to bomb.

Reporting based on coverage by the New York Post.