It looked like a terrible mistake—impulsive, emotional, self-indulgent, and all but sure to be disastrous for his country. Learning of Donald Trump’s early October decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports and buy more than 2 million barrels of fuel from Moscow, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lashed out, calling it a “weak decision” and a “happy birthday present for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
Nearly two years into Trump’s second, unfettered presidency, few foreign leaders have dared to push back so firmly against his bullying. Certainly, no one had called him “weak”—the ultimate insult for a would-be alpha male like Trump—and only Chinese President Xi Jinping had successfully defied him, meeting American tariffs with Chinese tariffs and forcing the U.S. leader to back down.
How could wartime Ukraine, already fighting for its life and deeply dependent on U.S. weapons and intelligence, pull off such defiance? Surely, Trump would crush Zelensky, as he has crushed so many smaller opponents, foreign and domestic.
Yet nearly a month later, Zelensky is still standing. The contest between the two heads of state is far from over, and it may not end well for Ukraine. But contrary to the conventional wisdom. it looks like Zelensky may have won the latest round. This is not because Ukraine alone is strong enough to resist the U.S.—it isn’t. But Zelensky judged the political moment more shrewdly than Trump did and has rallied world opinion to his side.
The brawl began on October 9 with the diesel deal and escalated quickly. Trump responded to Zelensky’s pushback with strong words of his own, saying it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president.” When the White House unilaterally announced an “energy ceasefire,” demanding that Kyiv and Moscow refrain from attacking the other’s energy facilities, Zelensky complied for a few days, even as Russia continued to shell power plants in Kyiv and other cities, but then punched back at Moscow with one of the biggest Ukrainian drone strikes of the year. Trump’s angry reaction: an executive order waiving the sanctions on Russian fossil fuels mandated by late Senator Lindsey Graham’s legacy sanctions act, which Trump had signed in September.
Then, in mid-October, Trump and Elon Musk hit Ukraine where they knew it would hurt most—by withholding must-have firepower. First came restrictions on the use of Musk’s Starshield satellite network, which Ukrainian troops rely on to strike Russian supply lines and protect civilians from jet-powered drones. Second, according to Ukraine, Washington paused the flow of U.S. intelligence that warns Kyiv about impending Russian bombardments. In the last and perhaps sharpest blow, the U.S. delayed shipment of the Patriot interceptors that Ukraine counts on to down the deadliest incoming rockets—hypersonic ballistic missiles.
Taken together, it was hard to imagine a worse American abandonment of a one-time ally. The United States was openly siding with a brutal autocrat, funding the aggressor’s war machine, punishing his democratic prey, and withholding weapons essential to protect civilians. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denied that the U.S. had withheld intelligence, and Trump and Musk still can’t agree on who ordered the Starshield slowdown. But if anything, these denials seemed to underscore the magnitude of America’s betrayal. Even those responsible seemed to know it was shameful.
Zelensky had no illusions about what Ukraine could lose if Trump doubled down. While Britain and France provide intelligence about impending Russian bombardments, neither has anything like America’s space-based early warning system, which uses infrared sensors to detect enemy ballistic missile launches.
So too with air defense. Ukraine and Europe are working feverishly to develop systems to shoot down ballistic missiles, but none will likely be available for several years. For now, there is no alternative to Patriot interceptors, which Europeans buy from the U.S. and donate to Ukraine.
Perhaps most important, Zelensky knows that only the U.S. can broker a peace deal. Only Washington, he explained last week even as he punched back at Trump, “can force Russia to end the war.”
“If the United States officially will take the side of Russia,” the Ukrainian leader conceded ruefully on NBC’s Meet the Press, “if these two countries will be together, of course we will not prevail, and we will not be able to stand.”
Looking back, it’s hard to tell if Zelensky’s pushback was impulsive or calculated—or maybe a little of both. The diesel deal was “not fair and not honest,” he declared emotionally to a reporter just moments after the arrangement was announced. Yet he also foresaw that it would be the first of many U.S. concessions. (Trump wants a ceasefire too badly to let decency get in the way.) “Gas deals will follow,” Zelensky predicted, and “after gas, [Washington] will lift sanctions on other things . . . . the banking system, individual [Russians], and the chemical industry.”
Either way—impulsive or calculated—his timing was better than he knew.
The last time he and Trump squared off, in the Oval Office in February 2025, European leaders counseled caution—and encouraged the Ukrainian leader to offer shows of gratitude, flattery, and behind-the-scenes Trump whispering. This year, following Zelensky’s lead, their rebukes were public and the anger unmistakable. “We [Europeans] are sticking to our sanctions against Russia,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed in the wake of the diesel deal. The European Union’s top diplomat and former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas went one step further, accusing Trump of trying to force Ukraine to “surrender on Putin’s terms.”
A few days later, the EU countered with new sanctions—what one official called “the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war.” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre convened a meeting in Oslo between Zelensky and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff. Støre’s declared motive: to ensure Europe has a voice in any future peace negotiations.
This week, he and Finnish President Alexander Stubb initiated a phone call with Putin to underline the difference between Trump’s appeasement and northern Europe’s staunch support for Ukraine. European capitals began jockeying to decide who will represent them at the negotiating table. A short list of candidates surfaced in Brussels, and leaders are starting to float ideas about what Europe should demand.
If anything, Republicans’ response has been even more dramatic. After last year’s Oval Office shouting match, virtually no Republicans dared rebuke the president. Even Ukraine’s long-time ally, Lindsey Graham, demanded that Zelensky resign. This year, with many GOP lawmakers fighting for their political lives against White House-created headwinds, several have stood up to denounce the Moscow pivot.
Republican U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, Kevin Cramer, Thom Tillis, and John Cornyn have spoken out against the diesel deal and Starshield restrictions, as has Representative Mike Turner, a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee. A stream of congressional letters—partisan and bipartisan, from both the House and the Senate—has called for implementing the Graham sanctions and reviewing Elon Musk’s relationship with the Pentagon. Democrats and Republicans are talking about congressional investigations, and several senators have threatened to withhold votes on Trump nominees until Ukraine is given full Starlink access—including permission, not yet granted by any president, to use it for strikes deep inside Russian territory.
None of this puts Ukraine in the clear. Trump still dislikes Zelensky and admires Putin—still believes Zelensky “wants to make problems for the world” and Russia “has been fine on Ukraine.” The White House is still eyeing a raft of lucrative economic deals with Moscow. Trump still hopes to meet with Xi and Putin before the end of the year—a summit many fear could reprise the 1945 Yalta Conference, where the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union redrew the map of Europe.
Most ominously for Ukraine, the administration still seems intent on imposing the lopsided peace deal it has championed for over a year—a deal that requires Kyiv to give up a vast swath of territory in the eastern Donbas region that Russia has been unable to conquer in more than a decade of hard-fought war.
Can Europeans muster the diplomatic clout to block that unjust agreement? Will Congress help? Can the world stand up to ensure a fair and lasting peace in Ukraine? Many tough fights lie ahead.
But one thing is already clear, as Zelensky argued about the diesel deal: “This decision will not help Americans.” It’s too small to bring down gas prices. It won’t stop Moscow’s escalating aggression in Europe, including drone and cyberattacks. It will hasten the rethinking already underway around the world, as allies question their reliance on U.S. weaponry that can be restricted arbitrarily by a mogul like Musk or a bureaucrat in Washington.
And then there is the deepening stain on American global leadership—our moral authority and reliability as an ally seeking to keep order in the world. Donald Trump put all that in question a long time ago, but this month’s pivot toward Moscow takes us to a new ugly low.
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