WorldRussia-Ukraine
Zelenskyy says war 'must be brought to an end' after call with Witkoff and Kushner, as Starshield row with Washington simmers
The Ukrainian president said Kyiv and Washington were in near-constant contact on next steps after the Florida talks. Marco Rubio, due in Mumbai this week, said Ukraine has no access to SpaceX's military Starshield service for now.
Key points
- Zelenskyy said he spoke to US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and that "a lot depends" on Washington.
- Rubio said Ukraine does not have access to Starshield and its request is "under conversation".
- Russian strikes killed two people in Volyn near the Polish border, Ukrainian officials said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia’s war on Ukraine “must be brought to an end” and that Kyiv was preparing for the “next steps” in diplomacy, after a call with Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Writing on X, the Ukrainian president said the two sides were in “virtually nonstop communication” about the results of the recent talks in Florida, and that “a lot depends” on the American position.
The warm words came in a week of open friction. On Saturday, Trump waived expected sanctions on Russia’s energy sector and on countries that buy its oil and gas, a list that includes India, after calling Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian refineries “a disgrace”. Ukraine pressed on regardless, hitting St Petersburg overnight in what Russian state media called the largest attack on the city since 2022.
Zelenskyy told NBC he was “thankful” that Washington had resumed intelligence sharing after a pause. “It was blocked for some period of time. And then it was deblocked by the American side,” he said, adding that Ukraine had gone without it during three days of Russian ballistic missile attacks.
The satellite dispute
The sharpest row is over satellites. Kyiv says limits on SpaceX’s services have made it nearly impossible to intercept Russia’s upgraded jet-powered drones. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine did not currently have access to Starshield, SpaceX’s military-grade service, which Kyiv wants for deep strikes inside Russia. “That’s under conversation,” he said.
Rubio rejected Zelenskyy’s suggestion that a Starlink outage on Wednesday was deliberate. “We have nothing to do with that,” he said, adding: “I’m not sure Zelenskyy knows what he’s talking about.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Zelenskyy “very reckless” for accusing the US of throttling connectivity.
On the ground, Russian strikes killed two people in the western Volyn region near the Polish border, and a woman was killed in Zaporizhzhia overnight, Ukrainian officials said.
Rubio is due in Mumbai for talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday, with energy on the agenda.