Trump Humiliated by Jaw-Dropping Attack After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Defies Him on World Stage

Ukraine’s long-suffering leader has had enough of Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump photo illustration

Photo Illustration by Eric Faison/The Daily Beast/Reuters

Ukraine’s leader has launched an extraordinary attack on Donald Trump as he announced that he would no longer abide by the U.S. president’s “energy ceasefire.”

In a furious interview published Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would not bow to Washington’s demands for him to end drone strikes on Russian oil refineries.

“We’re done,” Zelensky told the Financial Times after a three-day stay of attacks on the Russian energy sector. He made good on that promise hours later with major hits on an energy installation in Russia’s western Ryazan region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky listens during a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump following their meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on December 28, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida.

Zelensky said he would no longer abide by Trump’s “energy ceasefire.”

Zelensky, 48, personally criticized his 80-year-old U.S. counterpart for sucking up to authoritarian leaders. “He speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and he respects such people,” he told the newspaper. “Because for him people who can be leaders 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong.”

The Ukrainian president’s remarks are a stinging rebuke to pressure from the White House to halt attacks against Moscow’s oil infrastructure after Trump signed a deal to purchase more than 1.8 million tons of diesel from Russia last week. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Moscow’s energy industry to cut off revenue for Putin’s war machine.

SENSITIVE MATERIAL. THIS IMAGE MAY OFFEND OR DISTURB A wounded woman stands at the site of an apartment building damaged during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv October 13, 2026. REUTERS/Yan Dobronosov

Zelensky said people had been killed in Tuesday’s attacks.

Trump, who called for Zelensky to resign over the weekend, struck that agreement as the White House scrambles to bring down sky-high fuel prices driven by his own war on Iran. Voters have ranked that conflict and its impact on affordability among their chief concerns ahead of the Nov. 3 race for control of the House and Senate, with Democrats holding an overall 9-point lead over Republicans.

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Zelensky initially complied with an “energy ceasefire” that was unilaterally proclaimed by Trump in a social media post on Sunday without any apparent consultation with Kyiv or Moscow. He has now reversed course after Russia continued pummeling power plants and other facilities with attacks that have killed more than 100 civilians and left 600,000 without power over the past week alone.

Zelensky on Thursday announced a strike overnight that had destroyed four Russian warplanes and hit another two, vowing to continue operations on targets inside Russia.

The Trump administration pushed Kyiv to accept Trump’s ceasefire by threatening to withhold intelligence sharing if it did not, Zelensky said. He added that Ukrainian military forces had then gone without alert systems for incoming missile strikes and suffered slowed coverage from Elon Musk’s Starlink service, essential to frontline operations.

Trump has denied cutting off Ukraine’s intel supply, while officials in D.C. have told the Ukrainians the alert system failures were a glitch and that Starlink likely suffered a fault too. Zelensky has disputed that account. “It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he said.

Musk himself also wrote on X that the Starlink network used by Ukrainian forces is “owned and controlled by the U.S. government,” and that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) greets Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska.

Zelensky accused Trump of sucking up to authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

It represents the starkest rift between the U.S. and its nominal ally in the Russia-Ukraine war since Trump hauled Zelensky in for a vicious Oval Office dressing-down in February of last year. Vice President JD Vance accused the Ukrainian leader at the time of not being “grateful” enough for American support since Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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