'This is my answer': Zelensky smiles when asked about Trump making him a 'scapegoat' as he faces disastrous mid-terms

Volodymyr Zelensky triggered an audience to break out in laughter when he gave an unexpected answer to a question about Donald Trump.

At a press conference in Brussels following meetings with EU leaders, the Ukrainian leader was asked if Trump was scapegoating him for troubles in the US.

'President Trump is facing difficult midterm elections, his personal popularity is very low, diesel prices in the US are very high, and the war that he started in the Middle East is not going the way he wants. Do you think you are being a scapegoat for his own problems?' asked a journalist from Sky News.

After a considerable pause, Zelensky simply gave a knowing smile to the audience, adding: 'This is my answer.'

The question came after Trump said he found it easier to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin than Zelensky as ties have soured with Kyiv.

'Yesterday was a thousand drones in Ukraine, a thousand, but the American side said that it is difficult to speak with Zelensky, it's less difficult to manage with Putin,' Zelensky said.

He noted that Starlink services in his country were still being restored, after partial restrictions impeded the military's ability to defend against Russian forces.

'Has the speed been fully restored to what it was before? No. Is the speed being restored now? Yes,' Zelensky said.

'My partners told me that the administration and the White House sent a message to SpaceX asking them to restore it,' he added.

Kyiv reported restrictions to the service, operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX, on Wednesday, shortly after Trump criticised Ukraine and urged it to stop targeting Russian oil refineries.

Musk said any disruption was the responsibility of the US government, not SpaceX.

'This was a very unpleasant and dangerous surprise,' Zelensky said.

Ukraine uses Starshield, Starlink's military-grade satellite service, for its battlefield communications, its mid-range strikes on Russia-occupied territory, and its interceptor drones.

It also uses SpaceX's parallel Starlink civilian satellite system.

Zelensky said slowing down Starlink meant that Ukrainian forces were left 'unable to shoot down a certain number' of drones.

'In other words, we couldn't use a tool of defence... That is very painful,' he said.

He suggested that Ukrainian and US negotiators could arrange to meet soon, despite anger in Kyiv over Washington's diesel deal with Russia.

Both Zelensky and the US senators called ​the deal a gift to Putin that would provide Russia with revenue to keep funding its invasion of Ukraine. 

The waiver allows Moscow to add 300,000 tons of diesel to global markets in an effort to ease fuel prices before the US midterm elections next month. 

'I know our team is in constant contact with them. I think in the coming days they will agree on a meeting at one level or another,' Zelensky told reporters.

He asked European Union leaders to provide Kyiv an extra 70 billion euros (£59 billion) in funding next year to help it keep fighting Russia.

'The war will cost 155 billion euros next year. And we need at least 70 billion euros more from you - for defence, for weapons, and for our resilience. 

'This is a realistic amount. And I ask you to find this support,' Zelensky said in his speech at the EU summit.

Trump called Ukraine's renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries a 'disgrace' in an interview published yesterday.

Speaking to broadcaster Newsmax, the president blamed Zelensky for the war, claiming he – not Putin – had 'destroyed' Ukraine.

It came after Zelensky resumed attacks on Russian oil refineries after hitting out at Trump's 'betrayal' at a time of intense Russian attacks.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the Ukrainian leader said the cutting off of US intelligence sharing and the simultaneous weakening of the Starlink satellite internet service was 'dangerous' for civilians.

He added: 'The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We’re done.'

'Well, I think that's a disgrace,' Trump said yesterday, adding that Kyiv's recent strikes were driving up global energy prices.

Ukrainians wanted a deal with Russia but 'they’re not going to do it with him', he added. 'He says he wants to settle but he doesn’t. No, I’m not a big fan of Zelensky.'

On Thursday, a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's Ryazan region caused a fire to break out at a major oil refinery, marking the first Ukrainian strike on an energy facility since Trump announced a surprise 'energy ceasefire' on Sunday.

Separately, a fuel terminal spectacularly reignited after blazing for five days in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia.

Zelensky had paused energy ​strikes for three days to comply with US ​wishes, but said he would now resume them because Putin was still attacking Ukraine's essential ⁠infrastructure.

The Ukrainian attacks targeting Russian oil came after Zelensky's fury at US President Trump for signing a 'treacherous' deal to buy Russian diesel last Friday.

Putin vowed revenge following the attack at the refinery, which accounts for almost 5 per cent of Russia's total oil refining throughput.

Moscow responded by targeting a Ukrainian supermarket in a drone strike on Thursday.

The store in the Odesa region was partially destroyed and three people were injured in the jet-powered shahed drone attack, which Zelensky condemned as an act of 'bloody terror'.

A Russian drone strike on Ukraine's city of Kharkiv killed three people and injured at least five on Friday.

Emergency services were working at the scene and the injured were receiving medical assistance.

Trump has, in recent days, demanded Zelensky quit as leader and blamed him for spiralling energy prices.

Zelensky, meanwhile, lambasted Trump over his apparent admiration for Putin, accusing the US president of having an instinctive affinity for autocrats and the super-wealthy.

'He [Trump] speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and he respects such people. Because for him people who can be leaders 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong,' Zelensky said.

Washington piled pressure on Kyiv to stop striking Putin's refineries, claiming that a moratorium, alongside a US deal with Moscow to buy hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Russian diesel, is necessary to bring down American fuel prices.

Zelensky condemned the US deal with Russia, arguing it would help Russia prolong its brutal invasion of Ukraine. 

Trump responded to Zelensky's criticism of the deal by saying it was 'time for Ukraine to get a new president', marking a rapid decline in relations between the two countries.

Trump then announced on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed a ceasefire on strikes on energy infrastructure 'effective immediately' - to which Zelensky responded that the ceasefire was 'news to me'.

But the Ukrainian president agreed to halt strikes on Russian oil facilities if Moscow stopped its bombing campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

Despite Ukraine's honouring of the supposed ceasefire, Zelensky said his military had been left without US early-warning alerts for incoming ballistic missiles, while Musk's Starlink satellite communications service had been slowed down across the nation, interfering with frontline operations and medium-range strikes against Russian military sites.

Russia, however, did not honour the ceasefire, instead continuing to pound Ukraine on Monday by targeting its gas infrastructure, a power plant and a substation.

The order to limit the satellite system used by Ukraine ​for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House, two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The officials said ‌leaders at the Defence Department received a message that the SpaceX Starshield service for the Ukrainian military needed to be slowed.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not specify who in the White House made the decision or who was responsible for implementing the order. 

The Pentagon is the biggest customer of Starshield, which is the military-grade version of the Starlink service. 

Ukrainian officials said this week that military-grade Starlink receptors stopped working in Ukraine ​when mounted on fast-moving objects, interfering with the performance of Ukrainian drones that rely on them for onboard guidance systems over Ukrainian territory. 

A person in Ukraine's Defence Ministry said on ​Thursday that the receptors were now working when in motion, but only at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour (160 kph). 

The move to temporarily restrict the vital communications system came as Trump has pressured Kyiv to stop its attacks on Russian refineries, which he has blamed for the ​soaring energy prices that are denting his Republican Party's prospects in the November midterm elections. 

But experts say that surge in energy costs is mainly the result of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which brought Iranian ​attacks on energy facilities and has largely shut the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Elon Musk - whose company SpaceX operates the Starlink satellites which have slowed down in recent days - took to X to condemn Ukraine's resumption of attacks on Russia's oil facilities.

'And so the slaughter continues,' the tech billionaire wrote. 'Time for Zelensky to go.'

He posted on X late on Wednesday that Starshield systems, the military-grade satellite network built on Starlink technology, were 'owned and controlled by the US government'.

'Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,' he said, referring to Trump.

Speaking on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Zelensky agreed he felt 'betrayed' by Trump's actions over the past few days, and warned the president: 'This is not the right side of history.' 

On Thursday, Trump said Zelensky was 'more difficult to deal with than [Vladimir] Putin'.

'He is not a good guy for us to deal with,' the US president told Newsmax.

'Well, I think if they are going to end up with a settlement of some kind, they are not going to do it with him.

'He doesn’t want to settle. He says he wants to settle but he doesn’t. No, I’m not a big fan of Zelensky, they’ve destroyed that country.'

He added: '[The war] should end soon. I think they actually both would like to see it end. But I think I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.

'As you know, Putin hates Zelensky, and Zelensky hates Putin. And when you have that kind of hatred, it’s very hard to get something settled.'

Addressing Kyiv's renewed strikes on Russian oil facilities, he said: 'Now, if you tell me that Zelensky is again shooting at refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher.

'Well, I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets... There are a lot of targets that you can hit.

'But when you shoot at diesel refineries where you make, you know, diesel oil and we need that and the world needs that, then he’s not doing a good service for the world.' 

Ukraine was said to have completely run out of its stocks of the American-made Patriot air defence on Thursday - which are among the only weapons capable of knocking down a ballistic missile.

Zelensky urged Trump to allow US factories to produce the missiles locally on licence, as a source told CNN: 'Almost all the ballistic missiles from the last strike were not intercepted due to lack of the [interceptor] missiles'.

'As of October 7, there were only 10 missiles left. These were used up during the attacks. Currently, there are only a couple remaining,' a Ukrainian official told the Washington Post. 

On Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, Russian ballistic missiles hit three power plants in Kyiv - killing four and injuring 25.

Britain is sending Ukraine additional long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to help disrupt Russia's military operations and counter attacks on civilian infrastructure, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Zelensky met Prime Minister Andy Burnham in London on Wednesday, when Britain reaffirmed its support for Kyiv and announced further military assistance following a recent deterioration in Ukraine's ties with Washington.

Ukraine’s Defence Forces struck an airfield in the Voronezh region on Thursday, destroying four of Russia’s Su-34 aircraft.

Two more Su-34s were hit in the attack on the Borisoglebsk military airfield.

The assault represents a major blow to Putin's strike aircraft used to bombard Ukrainian troops and cities with devastating glide bombs.

The breakdown in relations between Kyiv and Washington comes as American officials have proposed that European countries unfreeze some Russian sovereign assets immobilised after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The assets would be transferred to a vehicle overseen by Washington in an attempt to revive peace talks.

European ⁠delegates rebuffed the plan, which was pitched by US ​special envoy ​Steve ⁠Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared ​Kushner, ⁠the FT said.

The Trump administration is also considering easing sanctions on so-called shadow fleet vessels that have transported oil and petroleum products from countries including Russia, Iran and ‌Venezuela.

The move aims to reduce record-high global freight rates that have cut into demand for US crude.

Zelensky wrote on X on Thursday that it was 'obvious that Russia deliberately escalated these strikes after receiving a relaxation of sanctions and seeing attempts to pressure Ukraine'. 

He continued: 'Russia exploits every such moment and must be held accountable for what it does. Strong decisions are needed to end this war. Ukraine needs stable support, and first and foremost in air defence. 

'Partners need honesty regarding the war: it is important that everyone in America stands not on the side of the aggressor, but on the side of protecting our lives and our efforts to end this war and ensure security.' 

Russia on Thursday said Ukraine was going against Washington's peace efforts by striking Russian oil refineries, even though Moscow itself never publicly agreed to Washington's 'energy ceasefire'.

Kyiv 'continues to launch strikes against these facilities. In doing so, it is coming into serious conflict with the peace efforts of the United States and American negotiators, who are making vigorous efforts to initiate the peace process,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Putin is plotting strikes to crush Ukraine into submission after his rare admission that he blundered in the war.

The Kremlin dictator candidly acknowledged he failed to grasp Ukrainian tactics in hitting Russian Amazon-style online retail giants, data centres belonging to Google-like giant Yandex and the largest financial institution Sberbank.

Ukraine 'keeps taking steps which, frankly speaking, we probably should have anticipated, but we thought they would never think of doing such things,' confessed a blindsided Putin who prides himself on being a great war strategist.

'They did think of them, and we are beginning to respond.'

He referred to online giants Wildberries and Ozon as well as Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries.

Vowing revenge, Putin said: 'They made the first move. We began responding, and now they are already whining about energy facilities and other targets, including data centres and so on.

'But they started it. They should not have started it.

'Before taking that step, they should have thought carefully about the consequences.'

A Russian plan leaked to Ukraine and obtained by The New York Times shows Putin’s suspected apocalyptic revenge campaign, already unfolding.

The aim is to use 70 ballistic missiles, 720 long-range drones and 150 guided bombs to cut off the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa from water, power and heating.

Putin reportedly calculates that one month of intense strikes could wreak havoc as the weather turns cold, something he has failed to inflict in the war’s four previous winters.

He allegedly aims to cripple the capital, Kharkiv and Odesa to bring Ukrainians to their knees, despite Trump’s constant claim that Putin wants a deal to end the war.

Russia again targeted key energy installations overnight across Ukraine but especially in Kyiv which faced emergency blackouts.

The strikes were so intense that NATO twice scrambled military aircraft over neighbouring Poland.

'These measures are precautionary and are aimed at securing and protecting Polish airspace, particularly in areas adjacent to the regions under threat,' said a statement from Warsaw’s operational command.

'He wants to freeze us into surrender, but it won’t work,' said an emergency responder in Kharkiv.

Close Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev seized on Trump’s claim that Zelensky won’t make peace, crudely claiming that the Ukrainian president 'ought to have taken some rat poison or downed a horse’s dose of…coke.'

Despite Putin’s bluster, he was locked in urgent late meetings with his prime minister and FSB security chief Alexander Bortnikov along with other top officials, claimed insider Telegram channel VChK-OGPU.

Putin also faced an eighth consecutive day and night of airport disruption in Moscow, which early today extended to St Petersburg.

As all four Moscow airports - Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky - were closed due to Ukrainian drones, seven government-linked planes took off from military Chkalovsky airfield during the attack - possibly to evacuate the aircraft.

Hundreds of planes were delayed and cancelled as Zelensky seeks to massively disrupt Russia’s civil aviation.

A Ukrainian drone strike in Vladimir region was suspected as a new attack on internet giant Yandex, already reeling from earlier attacks.

And for the second day in succession, Ukraine defied Trump by hitting the Ryazan Oil Refinery.

Russians and Ukrainians joined together in mocking Trump for his claim that Putin-occupied Crimea is 'surrounded by an ocean on all four sides'.

In fact it is a peninsula attached to the mainland, sided by the Black and Azov seas - nowhere near any ocean.

Previously Trump called Crimea 'the size of Texas or something — in the middle of the ocean. And it's gorgeous.'

In fact, Texas is 26 times larger than Crimea and 15 per cent bigger than all Ukraine.