U.S. President Donald Trump publicly accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not wanting to end the war with Russia on Sunday, October 18, in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform that marked the sharpest turn yet in the deteriorating relationship between Washington and Kyiv.
In the post, reported by France 24 and other outlets, Trump defended holding off on a new Russia sanctions bill, saying he was "in the process of negotiating Peace" and did not want to "drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table" — while insisting the talks were making "great progress," even as he attacked the Ukrainian leader he needs at that table.
The Sunday statement caps a week of rapidly escalating tension: a U.S.-Ukraine negotiating session in Miami, a controversial American diesel arrangement with Moscow, renewed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, and a reported Russian proposal for a Trump-Putin-Xi summit that would leave Kyiv — and Europe — on the outside.
What Trump Said on Sunday
Trump's Truth Social post combined three arguments: that sanctions should wait, that Russia must be kept at the negotiating table, and that Zelensky himself is the obstacle to peace.
"Zelenskyy doesn't care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him, and that Crooked Joe Biden gave him in the past, he doesn't want to end this war, and probably never did." — Donald Trump, via Truth Social, as quoted by CDM Press
On the sanctions bill, Trump wrote that his decision was "a very simple one," according to France 24's reporting: "I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don't want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table." He added, as reported by The Times, that "great progress is being made, and that includes current hostage negotiations," and that "signing that document at this time will do that, and I can sign it later, or any time that I want."
Trump also painted a bleak picture of Ukraine's position, writing that Zelensky "could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now," and adding: "His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead. I WANT THIS WAR END!" He again attacked Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries — "Zelensky is using Diesel Refineries in Russia as a target, knowing that these attacks are seriously hurting the world diesel markets, including those in the United States," in remarks reported by Europe Says — and added that Russia was doing "very little" to help Iran and he wanted to keep it that way, as quoted by The Times.
A Week That Broke the Calm
The Sunday post did not come out of nowhere. The past ten days have seen the U.S.-Ukraine relationship slide from strained to openly hostile:
- October 9 — Miami talks: U.S. and Ukrainian negotiating teams met in Miami. Zelensky later posted on X that he had spoken with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about "next steps in diplomacy," according to Brit Brief.
- October 10 — The diesel deal and "new president": Washington announced an arrangement for Russia to supply 300,000 metric tons of diesel to the U.S. and world markets, covered in our report on Trump's Russian diesel deal. Hours later, outside the White House, Trump said it was "time for Ukraine to get a new president." He claimed he had told Zelensky to "do what you want, don't hit refineries," and that Kyiv had "lost 30% of your country" with "over a million people killed," the New York Post reported — adding that Kyiv should "get a new leader who can make a deal."
- Midweek — Strikes pause, then resume: Ukraine briefly paused its attacks on Russian oil facilities, then resumed them — after what reports described as 76 Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy, oil and gas sectors in the week since Trump's announcement, according to Brit Brief.
- October 18 — Drone war escalates: Russia's defence ministry claimed it had destroyed 1,015 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, Crimea and the Black Sea, Brit Brief reported. Separately, Ukraine launched one of its largest aerial attacks of the war, hitting an oil export terminal and a fuel depot in St. Petersburg, according to Netasgard News. Both are wartime claims and should be read with that in mind.
Kyiv's Answer
Zelensky has not answered the Sunday post with the same rhetorical fire — at least not in the reporting available so far. His most recent public move, according to Brit Brief, was the X post describing his conversation with envoys Witkoff and Kushner and the Miami meeting's "next steps in diplomacy" — an effort to keep the diplomatic track alive even as the political one burns.
Netasgard News reported that Zelensky has warned the United States not to side with Russia in the conflict, underscoring how Kyiv views the current American posture. For Ukraine, the refinery strikes are leverage: one of the few tools imposing direct economic costs on Moscow. Trump, by contrast, frames the same strikes as a threat to world diesel markets — including American consumers — and therefore as an attack on his own negotiating position.
That disagreement is now the central fault line of the war's diplomacy. As governments search for workable off-ramps, it is worth recalling India's three-part peace plan to end the Ukraine war, which laid out an alternative framework for negotiations — a reminder that Washington is not the only capital trying to end the fighting.
The Sanctions Bill Trump Won't Sign — Yet
At the heart of Sunday's post is a concrete policy decision: Trump is declining, for now, to sign a Russia sanctions bill that Congress has prepared. His stated reason is tactical — signing now could "drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table," as France 24 quoted him. His answer to critics is that the signature remains available — "I can sign it later, or any time that I want," The Times quoted him — and that withholding it is itself leverage over Moscow.
The sanctions question is inseparable from the October 10 diesel arrangement, which drew accusations that Washington was handing Moscow an economic gift. Our earlier coverage of Trump's Russian diesel arrangement and the backlash it sparked examined why that move alarmed Kyiv and much of Europe: every dollar of Russian energy revenue, Ukraine argues, funds the war machine its soldiers are fighting.
A Trump-Putin-Xi Summit — Without Ukraine?
Perhaps the most consequential development of the week has nothing to do with Truth Social. The Times, citing a former Russian intelligence officer who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, reported that Putin proposed during an October 9 phone call that he, Trump and Xi Jinping meet next month — possibly at the APEC summit in China — to negotiate an end to the war.
The proposal to include the Chinese president while freezing Ukraine out of the talks, The Times wrote, "will send alarm bells ringing across Europe." It is not hard to see why: a settlement negotiated over Kyiv's head would upend the principle — repeated by Western governments since 2022 — that nothing about Ukraine should be decided without Ukraine.
Whether the summit idea is a genuine Russian opening or a wedge designed to split Washington from Kyiv is, for now, unknowable. But its timing is telling: it arrived in the same week that Trump's frustration with Zelensky boiled over in public — and it gives Moscow an obvious incentive to widen the Washington-Kyiv rift rather than close it.
What This Means for the War's Endgame
Strip away the rhetoric, and Sunday's post reveals two competing theories of how this war ends — and they are now in direct collision.
The White House theory is that peace comes through a negotiated settlement in which Russia is coaxed, not cornered: sanctions held in reserve, economic engagement maintained, and Ukraine pressed to accept that today's deal is better than tomorrow's. Trump's claim that Zelensky "could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now" is the public expression of that clock-is-ticking argument.
The Kyiv theory is that Russia only negotiates seriously under pressure: on the battlefield, on its energy revenues, and on its international isolation. From this vantage point, delaying sanctions does not coax Moscow to the table — it tells Moscow the table is already tilted in its favor.
Both theories claim to want the same thing: an end to the killing. But any settlement still needs both Washington's leverage and Kyiv's signature. A peace process in which the mediator openly accuses one party of not wanting peace is, at minimum, a process under severe strain.
What to Watch Next
- The sanctions bill: Will Trump eventually sign it — and if so, on what terms? His own words keep the option open "any time that I want."
- The refinery strikes: Ukraine resumed its attacks this week; whether the campaign continues will signal how much weight Kyiv gives to Washington's warnings.
- The APEC summit: Next month's gathering in China is the rumored venue for a Trump-Putin-Xi meeting on Ukraine. Whether it materializes — and whether Ukraine gets a seat — will be the clearest test of where this diplomacy is heading.
- Kyiv's next move: Zelensky's team has so far answered escalation with diplomacy. How long that posture holds is the open question of the autumn.
The war in Ukraine is approaching its fourth year with no settlement in sight and its two most important Western interlocutors now openly at odds. Sunday's accusation may be a negotiating tactic — or it may mark a genuine turn toward a settlement shaped more by Moscow's preferences than Kyiv's. The coming weeks will show which it is.