Trump has fully sided with Putin, now threatening Ukraine

The Trump administration has threatened Ukraine's top military and government leaders that it will cut off the sharing of intelligence and close off one of Kyiv's last remaining channels for acquiring American weapons if Ukrainian drones continue to strike Russian oil refineries - the Kyiv Independent reported, citing two Ukrainian officials.

According to Ukrainian sources, the American side made clear that Washington will hold Kyiv responsible if any Russian energy facilities are hit during the "energy ceasefire" Donald Trump announced a few days ago. One official said that every military leader was called and threatened, each being told that intelligence sharing and weapons deliveries would be cut off. According to the outlet, such calls were received by Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the presidential office in charge of military affairs, and Mykhailo Drapatyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces - Palisa himself confirmed the threat to the Financial Times.

The threat carries weight because only a few, but crucially important, threads still tie Ukraine to American military assistance. Since Trump took office, Washington has not supplied weapons to Kyiv directly, but intelligence cooperation has continued so far, and a program called PURL has also been operating. Under this arrangement, European NATO member states pay for the American weapons Ukraine needs most, and in the program's first year it brought $6.7 billion worth of weaponry into the country. If Washington cuts off both channels, Ukraine would simultaneously lose the American intelligence on Russian troop movements and missile launches, as well as the possibility of obtaining American air-defense missiles and other vital equipment with European money.

The threats were preceded by a rather confusing forty-eight hours. Trump first announced that he had reached an agreement with Putin on purchasing Russian diesel, then repeatedly demanded a new president for Ukraine, and according to the Kyiv Independent, on Friday he said of Zelensky that he would be better off stopping the attacks on Russian refineries. Then, on October 11, seemingly out of nowhere, he announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed on an energy ceasefire - something several senior Ukrainian officials say Kyiv knew nothing about beforehand, and apparently neither did Moscow. The Russian army, in any case, carried on as if nothing had happened: hours after Trump's announcement, the Kharkiv thermal power plant was hit, and overnight into Sunday, according to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 121 Shahed-type drones, 76 of them jet-powered. The attacks killed at least ten people across the country and wounded dozens more, with Moscow targeting the power grid in several regions. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, declined to comment on the energy ceasefire to TASS, saying only that Russia is doing everything it can for a lasting peace - with the same breath rejecting Zelensky's proposal for a sixty-day ceasefire that would have allowed Ukrainian elections to be held.

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum, Zelensky said that Russia launched a targeted strike on a power plant in Kharkiv immediately after Trump's announcement, and that this should make it clear that Putin doesn't read Truth Social. According to the Ukrainian president, Kyiv is ready to observe the energy ceasefire if Russia does too, but it must cover the power grid and power plants as well, not just refineries. Ukraine, after all, has only a single oil refinery, and it was severely damaged by Russian missiles long ago, so the country imports most of its petroleum products anyway. A truce limited only to refineries would therefore protect Russia while giving Ukraine nothing. Zelensky added that Kyiv has already proven its good faith: no Russian refineries burned on Saturday night, yet at midnight a Russian jet-powered Shahed struck a Ukrainian gas production facility.

It is hard to describe the absurdity of the situation without exaggeration. The president of the United States, worried about gas prices ahead of the midterm elections, is threatening the victim of Russian aggression with the withdrawal of intelligence and weapons. Meanwhile, he is courting the aggressor with diesel purchases and the suspension of sanctions, while Moscow bombs the Ukrainian energy grid even in the first hours of the ceasefire Trump announced. On the very same day, the European Union adopted its largest-ever package of sanctions against Russia, comprising around 1,600 entries, more than half of which, according to Kaja Kallas, are linked to the production chain of ballistic missiles. The two decisions, placed side by side, show exactly where the dividing line within the West now runs. This time Washington is not demanding guarantees from Moscow for the ceasefire, but is demanding compliance from Kyiv - with an agreement that the other side evidently hasn't even read.

Outrage