Elon Musk has backed Donald Trump's call for Ukraine to replace President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, deepening a row over Russian diesel that has left Kyiv more isolated from Washington than at any time since the 2025 Oval Office clash.
"Zelensky has gone too far," the SpaceX owner wrote on X on October 10, hours after Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews that "I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president," the Kyiv Post reported on October 11. Trump was furious that Ukrainian drones kept hitting Russian refineries after he had told Zelenskiy to stop. "I said to him, 'Do what you want. Don't hit refineries,' and he went out, and he hit," Trump said. "He's better damn well stop."
Zelesnkiy retorted in an interview: "Donald Trump has no power to remove me from office. I believe many people in the United States still stand with Ukraine, and I will fight until the end, until the Ukrainian people, whom I love so deeply, finally see victory."
Musk's company runs Starlink, the satellite network Ukraine's troops and drone units rely on for battlefield communications. The Trump administration has threatened to cut Ukriane off from US satellite intelligence that would be a serious military disadvantage and impare its ability to target Russian assets, including refineries. Kyiv now faces a US administration that is also easing sanctions on Moscow rather than tightening them, at a time where Russia's winter barrage of cities and key power facilities is building rapidly. Ukraine's European allies are rallying behind Zelenskiy but hold few of the cards that would decide any deal with Russia and have no leverage over the White House decisions.
Starlink as leverage
Nobody in Washington has threatened to switch Starlink off, but Musk has already shown he is willing to limit how Ukraine uses it. In August he refused Kyiv's request to let Starlink guide strikes deep inside Russia, arguing that it risked escalation, The Atlanticat the time. SpaceX had turned down a similar request over Crimea in 2022 and has since restricted the service's use for drone operations, Euromaidan Press reported on October 5.
Kyiv knows the risk. Zelenskiy has said Ukraine is working on its own Starlink-style system and that the groundwork is in place, and Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilerman has said the drone and missile maker launched two satellites this year and plans dozens more in 2027. None of that will replace Starlink on the front line this winter.
In parallel, Russia is building its own version of Skylink, Rassvet, that is much more advanced with a dozen satellites already in orbit and is expected to cover all of Ukriane's territory by 2027.
Ukraine's government has closed ranks behind the president. "He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide. Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X the next day.
Misreading Washington
The White House sees Kyiv's anger as a miscalculation. "Zelensky is misreading the room. By continuing to hit refineries, he is eroding the good will that he has built with Trump over the last six months," a US official told Axios' Barak Ravid on October 10.
Zelenskiy had called the diesel waiver "absolutely terrible" and a "birthday present for Putin", and said Ukraine's negotiators in Miami had been used as "cover" while Trump and Putin settled fuel supplies. The delegation, led by Rustem Umierov and Kyrylo Budanov, flew home on October 10 without holding a planned second day of talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The first day "ended up being longer and with a slightly different flavour," presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told journalists.
The row is the latest in a long run of public clashes. Trump sent Zelenskiy home from the White House after their Oval Office shouting match in February 2025, called his refusal to recognise Crimea as Russian "very harmful" to peace talks in April 2025, and accused Ukraine's leadership of showing "ZERO GRATITUDE" when Kyiv pushed back against Washington's 28-point peace plan in November 2025. By September this year Trump was telling Zelenskiy that he "has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia".
Trump now presents Putin as the more willing partner, following a "very friendly" one and half hour call the two held the same day as the Ukrainian delegration was meeting the US envoys in Miami.
"President Putin would like to see a settlement, strongly," Trump said on October 10, describing his phone call with the Russian leader the previous day, AFP reported. "I think he should have an election," he said of Zelenskiy. The Kremlin's own account of the call, from aide Yuri Ushakov, was that Putin had ruled out peace talks for now and would press on until Russia achieved "all its objectives".
Moscow has seized on the split. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media on October 11 that Zelenskiy was in a state of hysteria. "If Zelenskiy were capable of considered actions, he would show a readiness for peace talks," Peskov said, according to local reports.
The Kyiv City State Administration advised capital residents on October 11, to stockpile at least three days of food and water, charge portable batteries, and insulate living spaces ahead of winter following Russian attacks on regional energy facilities. Municipal guidelines recommended three liters of drinking water and 10 to 12 liters of technical water daily per adult, after weekend strikes disrupted the metro network, knocked water pumping stations offline, and triggered emergency blackouts.
A diesel deal that changes little
Under the deal Trump announced on October 9, Russia will supply 300,000 tonnes of diesel immediately, 500,000 tonnes in November and 1mn tonnes after that, possibly rising to 3mn tonnes depending on the state of its refineries. The US Treasury has issued a general licence for Russian diesel transactions running to April 7, 2027, only three weeks after Trump signed the Graham sanctions act, the sweeping sanctions bill that was meant to squeeze Moscow's energy revenues. Several commentators noted that the license runs for six months starting on October 7, Putin's 74th birthday.
Moscow may have given little away. Russian diesel output has probably been running ahead of domestic demand for weeks, by about 130,000 b/d in September according to an estimate by Kpler, and demand has fallen further since the harvest, the Russian Oil & Gas Monitor analysis account noted on X. Russia's export ban would probably have been lifted by November 1 regardless, it said.
The deal would only lower prices if it raised Russian refinery runs, which have been down by between a third and a half since May as Ukraine's drones hit about four plants a week. That puts Trump's goal of cheaper fuel at home, where retail diesel is approaching $6 a gallon a month before the midterm elections, in direct conflict with Ukraine's most effective weapon against Russia's economy, at a time when defences dwindle and Kyiv has already been blacked out ahead of the first winter snows.
Zelenskiy offered a way out on October 11. Ukraine is ready to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow stops attacking Ukraine's energy infrastructure, he said, but any de-escalation must be "mutual and come with real guarantees," Reuters reported. The toll from Russia's strike on Zaporizhzhia on October 10 had risen to 23, including four children, he said, as missile strikes hit Ukrainian cities on a daily basis. The mayor of Kyiv has already advised those residents that can to leave the city.
Congress pushes back, Europe rallies
Opposition in Washington is building in Trump's own party. Republican congressman Brian Fitzpatrick is drafting a bipartisan "Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act" to ban all purchases of Russian oil and petroleum products, and fellow Republican Don Bacon has said he will co-sponsor it, the Kyiv Post reported on October 11.
"I consider the president's policy regarding Russia and Ukraine a failure," Bacon told Ukrainska Pravda. The bill would still have to pass both chambers and face a likely veto.
Europe is offering words of support and more consultations. Coalition of the Willing discussions were scheduled for October 10-12, though "the format is still being worked out," Lytvyn said, and Zelenskiy said he would speak to European leaders again on October 11. EU foreign ministers are due to approve a fresh round of sanctions listings on October 12. But Europe cannot offer Kyiv what only Washington can: intelligence, Patriot interceptors and a seat at the table with Putin.
Zelenskiy has spent most of the autumn trying to win Trump back, pitching an energy truce in September even as he was sounding increasingly desperate over air defence. Trump has meanwhile backed plans to trade sanctions relief for prisoners and Putin has been invited to the G20 summit in Miami in December. The diesel deal is the clearest sign yet that the White House sees doing business with Moscow as a bigger prize than keeping Kyiv onside.
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