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Amid the escalating tension with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, US President Donald Trump has increased pressure on the Eastern European country to make a deal that ends the war with Russia.
Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump redoubled his efforts to blame Ukraine’s president for stalling peace efforts aimed at ending the years-long conflict.
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“Zelenskyy has to want to resolve this war, and if he doesn’t, I think it’s going to be a very bad thing,” Trump said as he talked about Russia having an “unlimited” supply of people to send into the fight.
Moments later, the US president referenced a controversial Oval Office meeting he held with Zelenskyy in February 2025, shortly after returning to power.
Zelenskyy, said Trump, would then have made a “better deal”. “He’s going to have to want to make a deal because I don’t think his people are going to stand for it anymore,” Trump told reporters.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian president met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and European leaders in Oslo, Norway to discuss the end of the Russian war.
In a post on social media after the meeting ended, Zelenskyy said, without giving specifics, that his country “has some clear ideas on how to reach peace”.
“We are united with our European partners in this effort, and we want the Americans to take these ideas to the Russians,” writes Zelenskyy. “One of the important ideas is to move to a potential trilateral meeting of the leaders to address the issues that only the leaders can do.”
The Ukrainian leader added that Witkoff would go to Russia on Wednesday, where peace talks are expected to continue.
“Let’s see what Putin has to say,” Zelenskyy said.
When asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin should meet Zelenskyy, Trump said there was “tremendous” hatred between the two leaders.
“It’s hard for them to be in the same room,” Trump said. “I don’t care how it’s done.”
Starlink controversy
Trump’s remarks come as the White House continues to pressure Ukraine to force the country to cut a deal with Russia.
Last week, Ukrainian officials reported extensions with Starshield, the military version of the Starlink satellite system, run by the aerospace company SpaceX.
Ukraine relies on communication and intelligence technology to prevent Russian attacks.
It is unclear who ordered restrictions limiting Ukraine’s access to Starshield. SpaceX CEO and Trump ally Elon Musk pointed a finger at the White House.
“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or use are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote on October 14.
Reuters news agency also reported that the order came from the White House, citing two US officials and a Western official.
But a report in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday claimed that US officials blamed Musk himself for the extension, saying the SpaceX CEO ordered it last week. Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have both denied that the government directed the restrictions, with Hegseth pushing the blame on SpaceX.
Building relations with Putin
Trump, meanwhile, tried to ease the historically strained relations between Russia and the United States.
In August 2025, Trump invited Putin to Alaska, the Russian leader’s first visit to US soil in a decade.
More recently, Trump this month expressed openness to meeting with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of a trilateral discussion on denuclearization.
Trump also announced this month that he had struck a deal to get diesel from Russia, marking a stunning reversal from years of US pressure on Moscow’s economy.
The US president also waived new economic restrictions that would have been imposed under the Lindsey Graham Russia and Iran Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill he signed a month earlier in honor of a late senator.
It would have imposed sanctions on Russian officials, banks and tankers, as well as tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the decision on Tuesday, saying the law allows for waivers through a provision embedded in the legislation.
“The president chose to use a national security waiver to not implement this immediately [sanctions and restrictions]because he recognizes that these things have to be looked at in their entirety,” Rubio said in an interview with India News18.
Rubio argued that Trump is engaged in a “balancing” to decide the extent of US-imposed economic restrictions and how they might affect the rest of the world.
“When you put that pressure, sometimes it spills over and has a negative impact on other countries,” Rubio said.
