Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday thanked the Trump administration for resuming intelligence sharing between the two countries, but maintained the US had intentionally throttled its Starlink satellite internet access so that Donald Trump could send a “message” in his ongoing feud with the Ukrainian president.
In an interview on NBC, Zelenskyy said the US had “unblocked” intelligence on impending Russian ballistic missile strikes, which have pounded the country’s energy infrastructure as winter draws in.
“It was blocked for some period of time. And then it was deblocked by the American side. We are very thankful for this. Now it works,” Zelenskyy told NBC’s Meet the Press. “Only [the] United States has this unique intelligence to tell our side when Russia uses ballistic missiles. And we didn’t get it during ballistic attacks during three days.”
Zelenskyy also said that Elon Musk’s SpaceX was responsible for suddenly limiting the speed at which Starlink terminals worked in Ukraine, hampering drone operations on the frontlines as well as some air defence missions.
“It was a message from American government to limit the speed,” he said. “And technically, SpaceX did it.”
Two people were killed and at least 17 injured as Russia and Ukraine continued to trade strikes on each other’s power infrastructure, after the breakdown of Trump’s short-lived and unilaterally declared “energy ceasefire”.
Trump has increasingly sought a detente with Moscow, inking a deal to import diesel fuel from Russia and waiving sanctions voted for overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress. Zelenskyy has become increasingly critical of Trump’s actions as the US has piled pressure on Ukraine to cease striking refineries in Russia and end the war quickly on Putin’s terms.
“We want to trust him and I hope that he will change his decisions,” Zelenskyy said of Trump. “Because I think that it’s all mistakes and it will not help us. And it will not help [the] United States.”
Zelenskyy on Sunday said that he had spoken with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the two Trump envoys charged with ending the war in Ukraine, as part of Ukraine’s “virtually nonstop communication” with the Trump administration.
But the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, in a separate interview on NBC on Sunday said that Zelenskyy had been “reckless” to accuse the Trump administration of standing behind the throttling of Starlink.
“President Trump and Secretary Rubio have categorically said that no one in the Trump administration did that,” said Bessent. “And I think it is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge.”
He added: “President Zelenskyy should be very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true.”
Ukraine has resumed striking refineries in Russia and on Sunday attacked one of the country’s main oil terminals.
One person was killed and 15 wounded overnight after Ukraine used more than 1,000 drones to target Russian oil depots, logistics facilities and datacentres in one of its largest ever aerial bombardments.
St Petersburg’s governor, Alexander Beglov, said on Sunday that fires had broken out overnight at the city’s oil terminal, an oil depot and industrial warehouses. A logistics centre belonging to the Russian retailer Ozon and a datacentre for the local tech company VK were also targeted, both companies confirmed.
Alexander Drozdenko, the governor of the Leningrad region that surrounds St Petersburg, said 145 drones had been shot down and about 20,000 people were without electricity after the raid. “A large-scale [unmanned aerial vehicle] attack continues to be repelled,” he wrote on Telegram.
Fears that the conflict could be spilling over into Nato’s borders were stoked again on Sunday morning after Lithuania told residents in central and northern parts of the country to seek shelter for about an hour after an unidentified flying object entered its airspace.
During the red alert, Nato fighter jets were scrambled to the area, and Kaunas airport, near Lithuania’s second largest city, was temporarily closed, the national crisis management centre said.
The Nato aircraft were unable to visually identify the object due to cloudy weather and did not attempt to shoot it down, the centre said.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry later said it regretted the possible diversion of its drones into Lithuanian airspace on Sunday, which it said may have been caused by Russian electronic warfare.
“We apologise for any disruption, risks and concern this may have caused,” a spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyi, wrote on X. “We are committed to sharing all relevant information with our Lithuanian partners to establish the full circumstances of the incident.”
Meanwhile, local officials in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia said Russian strikes had killed a woman and wounded at least two other people, including a six-year-old girl. Two apartment buildings, 18 cars and an educational institution had been damaged by the attack, according to Mykhailo Semikin, the head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration.
Tensions are deepening between Kyiv and Washington, with the US president criticising Ukraine for its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, despite continued Russian aggression.
Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” last week – which neither side said they agreed to beforehand – that quickly collapsed as Moscow continued its strikes on Ukraine’s power grid and Kyiv eventually resumed its hits on Russian oil refineries.
The Russian defence ministry said its air defence units had downed 1,015 Ukrainian drones around the country overnight. The Tass news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who said Russia was responding with systematic, large-scale strikes.
“The Kyiv regime is resisting, but this cannot change the course of events,” he said, answering a question about how Russia might respond to Kyiv’s attack on St Petersburg.
On Saturday, Russia said it had carried out a major overnight attack, targeting Ukraine’s largest steelworks in the city of Kryvyi Rih and vessels using the port of Odesa. In a statement, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had also hit an electricity substation in the north-western city of Zhytomyr and another steel plant in Zaporizhzhia.
In the Trump administration’s latest effort to reduce tensions with Russia, the US president announced on Friday that he would put a hold on a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause on the legislation passed by both chambers was in the national interest.
Trump has yet to give details about what he has decided regarding further sanctions on Russia.
“We’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” he told reporters at a fundraising dinner at his Florida estate on Saturday. “But it’s a very good decision, and it’s going to be a decision that’s good for the country, and I think good for the world.”
In a post on X on Sunday, Zelenskyy said in the week since Trump’s announcement of an energy ceasefire Russia had attacked Ukraine’s energy, oil and gas sectors 76 times.
He also said that the previous night alone, energy facilities in four Ukrainian regions had been attacked and tens of thousands of families were still without power. He accused Russia of trying to cause a blackout.
“America should see that Russia is not taking any reciprocal steps in response to sanctions relief or agreements,” he said. “On the contrary, they take every signal of an opportunity to make money as proof that their bet on war is paying off and they can keep fighting.”
Zelenskyy also stressed that the war was continuing due to Russia’s invasion – not because Ukraine was defending itself. “It is Russia that must face pressure for peace to have a chance. Thank you to everyone who understands this and helps,” he said.
Ukrainian drones have repeatedly entered Nato airspace in the Baltic region in recent months. Kyiv has said they were steered off course by Russian signal jamming. Such incidents have stoked concerns that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spread.
Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
