Zelensky Defends Ukraine's Right to Strike Back After Trump Calls Refinery Attacks a 'Disgrace'

The clash

Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted Ukraine has the right to defend itself after Donald Trump called the country's renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries "a disgrace" — a sharp public clash that played out as European leaders gathered in Brussels to discuss how to fund Ukraine through a fifth winter of war.

Speaking at the EU summit on Thursday, Zelensky said he was "only standing up for Ukraine's interests", rejecting the American president's criticism of the refinery campaign. In a Newsmax interview that evening, Trump had said Zelensky was "more difficult to deal with than [Vladimir] Putin", adding: "I'm not a big fan of Zelenskyy" and "He doesn't want to settle."

The exchange marks one of the most direct confrontations yet between the two leaders, and it comes at a moment when Ukraine's survival through the coming winter depends on decisions being made in Brussels and Washington.

The diesel deal at the heart of the row

The immediate flashpoint is a controversial plan for the United States to import 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel in a bid to lower American fuel prices. Zelensky called the proposal a gift to the Kremlin that would "put more money straight into Putin's pocket to fund this war".

He went further, warning that a diesel deal could be the thin end of the wedge. He said he could not accept it because a gas agreement could come next — a scenario that would see Western money flowing back to Moscow at scale. "If I don't stand up to this... who else will?" he asked.

The dispute highlights the growing tension between Washington's domestic priorities — fuel prices have been soaring since February, in the context of the wider war with Iran — and Kyiv's demand that Russia's energy revenues be squeezed, not revived. Ukraine's campaign against Russian refineries is explicitly designed to cut the oil income that funds Moscow's war machine.

Asked whether Trump was using him as a scapegoat for his own political problems — the looming midterms, soaring fuel and diesel prices — Zelensky grinned and answered simply: "This is my answer." It was a moment of theatre that underlined how personally the Ukrainian president is taking the American pressure.

For background on the energy dimension of the war, see Verity's coverage of the G7's emergency oil and diesel release and the earlier drone attack on Saudi Arabia's oil lifeline.

Europe rallies around Zelensky

In Brussels, EU leaders closed ranks around the Ukrainian president. The summit agenda was dominated by two questions: how to fund Ukraine, and how to help it survive the winter — the fifth since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Zelensky told the European Council that the war will cost €155bn next year, and that Ukraine needs at least €70bn from the EU for defence and weapons. The figures underline the scale of the task: Ukraine is fighting a war of attrition against a larger neighbour, and its ability to keep going depends on sustained Western financing.

The European Council building in Brussels, where EU leaders met to discuss funding Ukraine and its winter survival

The European Council building in Brussels, where EU leaders gathered to discuss funding for Ukraine. Credit: Antoine Meissonnier, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

He also made a striking claim about Ukraine's military-industrial capacity: the country could produce up to three times more drones than it currently does, but "simply doesn't have enough money". The bottleneck, in other words, is funding, not know-how. Ukraine's drone industry has become one of the most innovative in the world — but innovation needs cash to scale.

Another acute shortage is US-made Patriot missiles, the air-defence interceptors that protect Ukrainian cities from Russian ballistic missiles. Without a steady supply, Ukraine's cities face the winter with weakening defences — a prospect made more urgent by Russia's continued bombardment.

The EU's foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, has been central to coordinating the bloc's support, but the sheer size of the sums Zelensky is requesting will test European unity in the months ahead.

The Starlink dispute

A further source of tension is Ukraine's battlefield satellite communications. Zelensky described restrictions and a slowdown affecting Ukraine's Starlink network as a "very dangerous and unpleasant surprise", and said speeds had still not been fully restored.

Starlink, operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX, has been critical to Ukrainian military communications since the early days of the full-scale invasion, enabling everything from drone operations to frontline coordination. Any degradation of the service — whether through technical limits, commercial decisions or political pressure — has immediate battlefield consequences.

The episode has revived longstanding Ukrainian anxieties about dependence on a privately controlled network for core military functions. Kyiv has been working on alternatives, but replacing Starlink's coverage and capacity is not a quick task.

A night of strikes

Even as the leaders talked, the war continued. Overnight, several people were killed in a Russian drone strike on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, which has endured relentless bombardment. Russia, for its part, closed Moscow airspace for several hours, saying its air defences had intercepted 644 Ukrainian drones across 26 regions.

The scale of the drone war on both sides is staggering — and it is growing. Analysis by BBC Verify of satellite imagery shows Russia has nearly finished building a new drone base in about six weeks near the Millerovo airbase in the Rostov region. Experts say the construction signals that Moscow intends to "increase the tempo of its strikes against Ukraine this winter".

Ukraine, meanwhile, has been hitting back deep inside Russia. Imagery from the US firm Vantor showed that a Ukrainian missile attack destroyed several Su-34 fighter bombers at the Borisoglebsk airbase in the Voronezh region — a significant blow to Russia's strike aviation.

The tit-for-tat campaign reflects a war that is increasingly fought at long range, with both sides trying to degrade the other's ability to sustain the fight. For Ukraine, the refinery strikes are a strategic choice: every barrel of Russian oil that cannot be refined or exported is money that cannot buy missiles.

For more on the battlefield picture, see Verity's recent reports on Russian drone strikes on Kyiv's bridges and US envoys' visit to Kyiv.

What comes next

The Brussels summit was meant to project European resolve. Zelensky's blunt message — that Ukraine needs €70bn from the EU and that American pressure will not bend him — sets the terms for a difficult winter of diplomacy as well as warfare.

The rift with Trump is the more dangerous variable. The US president has made no secret of his desire for a settlement, and his criticism of Zelensky — "He doesn't want to settle" — suggests a White House increasingly impatient with Kyiv's war aims. Whether that impatience translates into reduced American support, or remains rhetoric, will shape everything that follows.

For now, Ukraine's strategy is unchanged: strike Russia's oil revenues, hold the front, and survive the winter. As Zelensky's grin in Brussels suggested, he has no intention of backing down first.

*Read the original BBC report here. The White House and the United Nations publish their own statements on the conflict. For more world news, visit Verity's homepage.*