... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Donald Trump of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering to Russia, escalating a week-long row with the U.S. president.
In an interview with Bloomberg in Kyiv, Zelenskyy also offered a new proposal to accede to Trump's request to stop targeting Russian refineries, which was aimed at combating high diesel prices, in exchange for deliveries of more Patriot air-defense missiles.
"Now, we have dangerous days ahead of the elections," Zelenskyy said on Sunday, referring to the Nov. 3 midterms in the U.S. "My latest model was: We don't target Russian diesel, you give us missiles for Patriot systems to protect our facilities. But they just want us to stop attacking diesel. And if we strike that, they will disconnect us from something."
While offering an off-ramp from the escalating row, Kyiv is likely to be unsettled by a Wall Street Journal report that Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a meeting with Trump and China's Xi Jinping next month to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
Putin and Trump did discuss holding possible trilateral talks with Xi, though there were no specific proposals for a meeting or any agenda, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, Interfax reported. While Russia appreciates U.S. mediation efforts, no final resolution to the conflict is possible without a representative from Kyiv "who's willing to take responsibility," the news service cited Peskov as saying.
A meeting among the leaders of Ukraine, the U.S. and Russia could help end the war sooner, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X Monday. A trilateral summit that excludes Kyiv "would do only the opposite: encourage Putin to continue this war," he said. ...
