Trump Turns on Ukraine

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was on an overnight train. According to a person present, he was in a gloomy mood. He was on his way to meet the British Prime Minister in London and European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels, where he was seeking reassurance from Ukraine's European allies that they were still standing by him. Our colleague Marcus Walker covers Ukraine. And while he was on this train, he and his inner circle of advisors received the news that, for the second time in two days, Russian missiles had landed on Kiev, had hit energy infrastructure and had his power plants with no warning, without the usual warning from U.S. intelligence that there had been missile launches. These warnings from U.S. intelligence have been essential for Ukraine. They allow civilians to take cover and give the military a chance to try to intercept Russian missiles. And that wasn't the only news involving American assistance that made Zelensky worry. A few hours later, Zelensky received another message, namely from Ukraine's military, saying that their military-style ink terminals were certainly not working at full speed. That is, their drones were losing connectivity if they were flying over a hundred miles an hour, and that led to the failure with no warning of some of their strike missions against Russian forces in occupied parts of Ukraine. Taken together, these developments signal to Zelensky that the U.S. was turning its back on Ukraine. So in between these two pieces of news, which seemed very suspicious to the Ukrainian leader, he decided that he needs to take the gloves off and speak clearly about President Trump and his moves to try and court and accommodate Russia. In interviews with British media, including Pierce Morgan, Zelensky spoke out about the U.S. president. It's a pity that we are losing a strong partner. So this is my opinion. You think you're losing America? But not because of us. And this was a very risky decision because, of course, criticism of Trump could, and has led to further blowback to further angry statements towards Zelensky by Trump. That's why it's painful. When President Trump chooses one side, not our side, but we are okay. But he went further. He attacked Trump's attitude to put in the accused Trump of having an admiration for dictators and strongmen and people who rule their country for 20, 30, 40 years and also a mass enormous wealth while doing so. I don't know who is pushing Kim not to the right side. This is not right side of history. So there was a broad side from Zelensky against Trump's persistently favorable attitudes over the years towards Putin of Russia. U.S. officials say intelligence sharing with Ukraine continues and that the undetected Russian launches were due to bad weather. The Wall Street Journal reported today that Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of the military starling terminals. That's according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter. Musk is the owner of SpaceX, which operates starlink. SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment. Can you characterize this moment that we're in in terms of Ukraine's relationship with the United States? Is this a major break? I would say this is the lowest points of a difficult relationship of the last two years. Welcome to the journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Tuesday, October 20th. Coming up on the show, inside Trump's turn on Zelensky and Ukraine. Just weeks into his second term, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance held a meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office. The meeting famously devolved into a shouting match where Zelensky was dressed down in front of cameras. You're gambling with World War III and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. That's back to you. Far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once this entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting of you said thank you. After that contentious meeting, the Trump administration decided to end all direct military and financial aid for Ukraine. Only three things have remained from the US side. Intelligence sharing, selling weapons to the Europeans for use in Ukraine, and also Ukraine's continued use of starlink. So intelligence sharing, starlink, and the weapons it's providing to Ukraine via Europe. How important are those three things for Ukraine's ability to fight the war? Well, if all three were pulled in tightly, I think Ukraine would be in big trouble and it would turn the tables on the battlefield. Starlink, including the military form of starlink known as Star Shield, has allowed Ukrainian drones to hit Russian army logistics behind the lines. And that has made it very hard for the Russian army to advance. The other elements are especially important for protecting Ukraine's civilian population and its cities. Without US satellite intelligence, for example, on Russian missile launches, Ukraine would have an even harder time stopping Russian ballistic and cruise missiles. Despite Trump's pullback last year on aid to Ukraine, the ones who try to maintain a good relationship with Trump as much as possible. Since that disastrous, over-office meeting in early 2025, Zelensky has been trying to make nice with Trump. And it seemed like it was working. They had a number of good meetings, for example, when they met at Pope Francis' funeral at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. They sat down in the Basilica and they seemed to have a very successful meeting. And there have been a number of other successful meetings since then. And it did seem that, in the course of this year, Trump was not putting enormous pressure on Zelensky to make, for example, unilateral territorial sacrifices, like the Trump administration was looking for in 2025. During that relatively calm period, Trump had been looking for ways to end the war. But there was some disagreement with the Trump administration over how to do that. On one side, you have officials like CIA Chief John Rackliffe, who wanted to see the US apply maximum pressure to Russia. This camp also included the late Senator Lindsey Graham. And this reflects an approach that says the only way to stop Russia's war is really to impose costs and pressure, including economic pressure by undermining the oil industry revenues that keep the Russian state and the Russian military going. In other words, only pressure will stop Russia. The other camp is led by two key foreign policy advisers, special envoy Steve Wichoff, and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And that is all about offering carrots, that is trying to persuade Russia that instead of invading its neighbor, there is a better future for the country based on business deals and economic cooperation and prosperity. So it's a do sticks work or do carrots, a difference of approach within the administration. And there has been a certain lack of coherence or lack of clarity over what exactly US policy is for most of the last one and a half years. And Trump himself seems to have oscillated between these two approaches. So one of the things that has changed the calculus on all sides is this increased bombing on energy infrastructure. Can you talk about when that started and how did we get to the point where both Russia and Ukraine have been bombing each other's energy infrastructure? Russia has been trying to blow up Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the first winter of the war, which was 2022-23, really as soon as the Russian army got bogged down on the battlefield, Putin decided he needs to win this war by pounding the cities by freezing out the population of Kiev and other Ukrainian cities. By shutting down the lighting and heating and electricity systems to put pressure on the population and break civilian morale and will to resist. And the Russians have tried to do this with their winter campaigns every year since. Now, Ukrainians, when the war began, didn't really have much in the way of long-range weaponry. So over time, they have developed long-range drones that are able to hit targets inside Russia, military targets, military factories, factories that produce components for these missiles. And in the last couple of years, they've had potent enough drones to start hitting all refineries. Ukrainian strikes have reduced Russia's refining capacity by 30-50% according to some estimates. And that's been a big blow for an economy that relies heavily on oil exports. It needs those export earnings to finance the Russian government and above all the Russian military. So take away those revenues and Russia would be forced to stop the war. That's why it's essential pillar. It is the most important piece of strategic leverage that Ukraine has over Putin to make him stop the war. But then, of course, along came the Iran War, and this has been the big complicating factor. The Iran War, and Iran's decision to close the Strait of Hormuz, caused a major disruption to the world's oil supply, and it set gas prices, especially diesel through the roof. That put a squeeze on American consumers. Consumers who in a couple of weeks will be voting in the midterms, so Trump has been looking for ways to alleviate this pressure at the pump. And he was hoping until about August that he would be able to resolve the Iran situation, to browbeat through force and negotiations, to force Iran to accept terms acceptable to the US, and that that would then lead to energy price relief. That didn't happen. And I think that when he realized that the situation with Iran will continue beyond the midterms, that's when he started to decide that Ukraine strikes on Russian refineries and other problem. And the way for him to reduce diesel prices is to rein in Ukraine's refinery strikes, and that's where the tension began. That's next. In September, Zelensky flew to New York for the annual United Nations Summit. During a meeting there, according to people familiar with the matter, Trump pressed Zelensky on why Ukraine kept striking Russian oil refineries. After Trump realized that the Iran situation is stuck for the time being, he began complaining to the Ukrainians and to his own advisors about Ukraine's strikes against Russian energy. This was perhaps the smaller piece of the global energy equation, but the one that he could affect in the short term and before the US midterm elections. Zelensky pushed back, instead Ukraine needed to defend itself. And Zelensky seems to have told him that these refinery strikes are very important strategically. They are the strongest card that Ukraine has to pay. But Trump didn't relent. Trump continued to put pressure on Zelensky to unilaterally stop hitting Russian refineries. He seems to have pushed Zelensky on this half a dozen times over the past month. Zelensky wouldn't give in. He wouldn't make this unilaterally sacrifice of Ukraine's strongest card. Trump seems to have become angry with Zelensky about this and increasingly impatient. And this erupted when a series of moves made that have really brought these tensions to head. Trump has announced a deal with Russia, which would see Moscow supply diesel fuel to US and global markets. The first thing that happened was Trump announced a deal with Putin to supply Russian diesel to the US. And in all, a total of 1.8 million tons will be released over time as part of this deal. Now the Trump administration… This came as a nasty surprise to the Ukrainians and to the Europeans because it was a reversal of the direction that the West has been aiming for, which is to restrict Russia's energy revenues and put pressure on it to come to the table. That's a diesel deal, not for us. That's being released into the world. That's not being released to us. That's a diesel deal that's going to be released into the world for the world market. Because the world market suffered with high prices. And the way Trump has been talking publicly about this is like, here's a big supply diesel that's going to hit the market and therefore it should help prices go down. Yes. Which energy experts quickly pointed out was unlikely to work because the US is actually a much bigger diesel exporter than Russia is. The US doesn't need Russian diesel and the amounts of Russian diesel that they were discussing that Russia is able to supply are almost certainly too small to move the needle very much. But still it allowed Trump to present at least the political win. Then, a couple days after the diesel deal with Putin, Trump announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. It came as a surprise about Kiev and Moscow. Zelensky went along with it, ordering a pause in the energy strikes, but Russia didn't. Zelensky said Russia struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure 76 times in just a few days. Then came those changes on the battlefield. The changes that made Zelensky so upset on that train ride where the US appeared to stop giving warnings about Russian attacks and Ukraine's starling connection started slowing down, which made it harder for Ukraine's drones to operate. What is the Trump administration said about the changes to intelligence sharing? The administration has denied that there was ever an interruption in intelligence sharing. They claim that the occasions on which there was no warning of a Russian ballistic missile launch, it was because of a technical problem or perhaps because of a weather problem. There is a lot of suspicion in Kiev about whether this is true because it has happened several times in a row now and it's unusual. But the US, they have insisted that nothing deliberate has been pulled, that this is just a technical problem. Today, the journal reported that Elon Musk ordered a slowed-out of Starlink. That decision sparked panic in Kiev in confusion inside the Trump administration, US officials and people familiar with the matter said. Two of the people said that Musk and Trump discussed the Starlink decision in a call soon after the slowed down became public. One person claimed Musk and Trump discussed the matter prior to the decision to slow down Starlink. Trump has denied ordering the restrictions. On Friday, Trump took another step that favored Russia. He signed an executive order using sanctions that would have targeted countries that were buying Russian oil. The sanctions had been authorized into a bipartisan bill passed in September, a bill named after the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. And now, the relationship between Trump and Zelensky has basically devolved into another shouting match. It is a big shift and a risky one for Zelensky, but it seems that Trump has reverted his instincts on this conflict, which are that the lack of peace is more Zelensky's fault than Putin's, and that the onus is on Ukraine to make the sacrifices and the concessions to bring about an end to the war. And this reversion is a major worry for Ukraine if it persists and if it leads to more concrete military consequences. What's been the reaction around Washington DC and among Republicans to Trump's moves? Meaning that Trump has done since that first diesel deal has divided the Republicans with Congressmen and senators, many of them coming out and criticizing him. Not all, of course, some have defended it as the diesel deal as a move that will help American consumers, but a number of Republican lawmakers have said this is wrong, this is a mistake, this is a giveaway to Putin that will not bring him to the table at all. But this really seems to have caused problems for some Republican candidates who are in tight braces and are finding themselves being asked awkward questions and interviews or in town hall meetings. Trump is really going against the majority of American public opinion here, including among Republican voters because Putin's Russia is not popular. Ticking together, what is this moment going to mean for this conflict? One of this changes the conflict really depends on how much further it goes and how long it lasts. The danger for Ukraine is that this persists because it reflects a change of approach or rather a more determined pursuit of this approach by Trump of carrots for Russia sticks for Ukraine.