President Trump spent Friday on something Washington has rarely managed in four years of war: arranging the provision of more diesel fuel to the American market. Within the space of a few hours Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, was posting about how this was a "gift to Putin". That reaction says a great deal about whose interests he is protecting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Friday that "Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world." Russia will "repay" the diesel with "further terror and perfidy," he wrote. The Ukrainian leader described the arrangement as "an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged."
Zelenskiy has refused any effort at peace.
He called any easing of sanctions on Russia without a lasting peace agreement "an obvious weakness," Newsweek reported. He is lecturing the American president on lowering prices for American truckers and farmers.
That was not an outburst. It's part of a rather consistent pattern by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. As CDM reported Thursday, the Ukrainian leader told US President Trump that he "has to do more." A day earlier, he brushed off Secretary of State Marco Rubio's assessment that diplomacy had stalled, writing on social media "We are not at a diplomatic dead end." For years, Zelensky has refused to consider the idea of relinquishing even a sliver of territory to Russia. Speaking in front of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Kyiv, he was asked what he thought the alternative would be to more support for his ongoing war effort. "Not helping," he replied.
Those strikes matter at the pump. The BBC reports that Russian diesel production has fallen by almost 30%, according to the International Energy Agency, as a result of Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. Meanwhile, the national average price of diesel in the United States stands at $6.28 a gallon, the BBC notes. President Trump has said that Ukraine's continued attacks on Russian refineries are pushing up prices at the pump everywhere, including here in the US. On Friday, Zelensky defended the attacks, saying Ukraine "will not set Russian oil refineries on fire if Russia does not destroy our energy infrastructure," the BBC reported.
Meanwhile, the real, brutal cost of his war falls on the Ukrainian people. Overnight Thursday into Friday, Russia launched 136 drones at Ukraine, according to Ukraine's Air Force, with one man killed in the city of Zaporizhzhia. According to Zelensky himself, 78 people were killed and 215 injured by recent attacks, including an assault on an apartment building in the city of Pryluky and two passenger buses in Kramatorsk. His people are losing power as the country approaches winter. A leader who cared about them would seize every chance to end the killing. Instead, Zelensky denounces the one American president working to end it.
Every proposal aimed at a settlement is met with scorn from the government in Kyiv and called a 'gift to Putin' or a 'weakness'. When every avenue for achieving peace is treated as a trap, the war becomes policy and the warmonger is exposed. A man who refuses to even consider a ceasefire, and who will not contemplate compromise on key issues of territory, is not fighting for his people. He is waging war for war's sake.
And it is paid for by the American taxpayer. Yet time and again he lectures the leader of the one country actually doing something for Ukraine in this war. We are told that Ukraine's interests are the same as America's. But they are not. America's interest is a negotiated end to a war that is draining Europe, driving up fuel prices and risking a clash between nuclear powers. And the person standing in the way of that is Zelensky.
It's time to end this war. The United States should immediately cut off all aid and assistance to the Ukrainian regime, including financial, military, intelligence and political support. Let this war end as all do, at the negotiating table.
