Ukraine’s president says communication between Washington and Kyiv ‘virtually nonstop’, despite a spat with Trump.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that the war with Russia “must be brought to an end” and that his country is preparing for the “next steps” of diplomacy to end the conflict.
Zelenskyy said on X on Sunday that he had a “conversation with the American president’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner”. He added that “a lot depends” on the US position, but it’s clear there are “many things that matter to all of us”.
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The Ukrainian leader’s comments come amid a significant diplomatic fallout with US President Donald Trump, who on Saturday waived expected sanctions targeting Russia’s energy economy and previously called renewed Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure “a disgrace”.
Nonetheless, Zelenskyy said his team is in “virtually nonstop communication” with their US counterparts and said a focus of dialogue is on the results of the talks in Florida and further steps.
US wavers on Ukraine’s access to tech
Also on Sunday, Zelenskyy said he was “thankful” that the US had resumed intelligence sharing with Ukraine after a pause left Ukraine particularly vulnerable to Russia’s regular ballistic missile attacks.
“It was blocked for some period of time. And then it was deblocked by the American side,” Zelenskyy told NBC, adding: “Only [the] United States has this unique intelligence to tell our side when Russia uses ballistic missiles. And we didn’t get it during ballistic attacks during three days”.
Kyiv has also reported restrictions on the speed of satellite service Starshield, a military-grade version of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite connectivity network, provided to Ukraine by Musk’s company SpaceX.
Ukraine said its relays were experiencing a limit on how fast receivers could travel while maintaining connectivity, making it almost impossible to intercept Russia’s upgraded jet-powered long-range drones.
Musk had said any restrictions imposed on Starshield connectivity were the responsibility of the US government. The White House quickly rebuked that and in an NBC interview on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Zelenskyy “very reckless” for accusing the US of throttling connectivity.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Ukraine is currently blocked from Starshield, and that a request from Kyiv to access the system for attacks deep inside Russia is “under discussion”.
Long-range attacks continue
Also on Sunday, Ukrainian media reported that Russian strikes killed two people in the western Volyn region, near the border with Poland, and injured at least five others across the country. Overnight attacks by Russia killed a woman and injured a six-year-old in the Zaporizhzhia region.
On Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday, Ukraine hit Russia’s second-largest city, St Petersburg, with a significant drone attack. It targeted a key oil refinery and depot, a warehouse of Russian online retailer Ozon and a data centre run by Russian social media company, VKontakte.
At least one person was killed in the attack, which Russian state media said was the largest on the city since the start of the war in 2022.
