Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on October 18, his first call with senior US officials since Washington's diesel deal with Moscow, Axios reported.
Zelenskiy's call with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on October 18. Source: Volodymyr Zelenskiy on X
"Our teams maintain virtually nonstop communication. We are also preparing the next steps in diplomacy," Zelenskiy wrote on X after the call, adding that they had gone over the results of the Ukrainian and US teams' meeting in Florida. "A lot here depends precisely on America's position. Ukraine remains ready to work constructively, honestly and towards a real result."
The call came as relations deteriorated sharply over the past fortnight. US President Donald Trump cut the diesel deal with Russia about 10 days ago, Washington has refused Kyiv any reward for halting its drone strikes on Russian refineries, and on October 17 Trump put on hold the Graham Act's "hellish" sanctions on Russia and the buyers of its oil. The "energy ceasefire" Trump declared on October 11 has not held on either side.
The call also came hours after Zelenskiy blamed the Trump administration for the restrictions placed on the Starlink and Starshield satellite systems that the Ukrainian military depends on.
"Who made this decision? I don't know. I think that this is really both [White House and SpaceX] decision. If President Trump will decide tomorrow, or better today, if he will personally decide to lift this decision, it will immediately work as it was before," Zelenskiy said on NBC's Meet the Press.
"It's the opinion of our generals, of our government, and of course also my opinion, that it was a message from the American government to limit the speed. And technically, SpaceX did it," he added.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on October 17 that the government had not been involved in the restrictions and that the service had been restored. Ukrainian officials dispute that.
Zelenskiy said he had also discussed deliveries of US Patriot air defence systems with the envoys, as Kyiv struggles with an interceptor shortage, AFP reported. He told NBC he was grateful that the US had resumed intelligence sharing after a pause, but that it would be a "historic mistake" for Washington to side formally with Russia. Witkoff and Kushner had pressed Kyiv on intelligence sharing over the refinery strikes at the talks in Florida on October 9.
The two negotiating teams are now working on a face-to-face meeting. National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umerov spoke to Kushner on October 16 to arrange one, Zelenskiy told journalists the next day, the Kyiv Post reported.
"We support the possibility of dialogue - anything to stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, at least in the format of an energy ceasefire," Zelenskiy said. "It is preferable to end this war completely, but we must start somewhere."
Zelenskiy has accused Moscow of breaking the energy ceasefire 76 times, and Russian strikes left tens of thousands of Ukrainians without power on October 18. Overnight, Ukrainian drones set a St Petersburg oil terminal ablaze in what Russian state media called the largest attack on the city since 2022.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after Trump's October 9 call with Putin that Russia would not resume formal peace talks while its forces held the initiative on the front line, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on October 18 that Ukraine's strikes would not change Russia's war aims. "The Kyiv regime is putting up a fight, but that cannot change the course of events," he told Russian media.