{"id":4096,"date":"2026-10-16T09:26:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=4096"},"modified":"2026-10-16T09:26:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T09:26:03","slug":"zelensky-rallies-eu-support-as-trump-says-ukraine-leader-more-difficult-to-deal-with-than-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=4096","title":{"rendered":"Zelensky rallies EU support as Trump says Ukraine leader ‘more difficult to deal with than Putin’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US President Donald Trump has renewed his sharp criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky, saying the Ukrainian leader is “more difficult to deal with than [Russian President Vladimir] Putin”.<\/p>\n

Speaking to US media on Thursday evening, Trump also called Ukraine’s fresh wave of strikes on Russian oil refineries a “disgrace”.<\/p>\n

Zelensky, who is in Brussels for a summit with EU leaders, had paused the attacks for three days at Trump’s request for a ceasefire on energy targets, but said on Thursday the strikes would resume because Moscow had never stopped.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, deadly attacks on Ukraine continued overnight, with several people killed in a Russian drone strike in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, the regional governor said.<\/p>\n

At least 14 people were injured, Oleg Synegubov wrote on Telegram.<\/p>\n

Zelensky has not commented on Trump’s latest criticism. He arrived at the summit in Brussels flanked by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Ant\u00f3nio Costa.<\/p>\n

“Of course we supported President Trump’s energy ceasefire but we’ve seen that Russia did not respect it, not a single minute,” Von der Leyen told reporters. “Russia escalated and therefore we have to increase sanctions on Russia… We will not lift any sanctions unless Russia stops the war.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump’s comments about Zelensky, during an interview with US outlet Newsmax, indicate the deteriorating relationship between the US and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

“Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with,” Trump said. “He doesn’t want to settle. He says he wants to settle, but he doesn’t,” he added.<\/p>\n

“I’m not a big fan of Zelenskyy”.<\/p>\n

When asked about Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries, Trump said it was “a disgrace”.<\/p>\n

“All he’s doing is making the world oil price higher… There are a lot of targets that you can hit.”<\/p>\n

Trump is frustrated at Ukraine’s continued targeting of Russian oil refineries because the US recently announced a deal to import 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel to the American market, in an effort to bring down fuel prices.<\/p>\n

That deal, in turn, infuriated Zelensky, who called it a gift to Putin.<\/p>\n

Zelensky has been holding back-to-back talks with EU leaders while in Brussels. On Thursday he met Nato chief Marke Rutte, as well as the presidents of Poland, France, Denmark and Belgium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A day earlier, he met UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham at No 10 in London.<\/p>\n

At the summit on Friday, Zelensky said he would hold talks with the chiefs of the European Council and European Commission, and the prime ministers of Hungary, Finland, and Sweden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump has renewed his sharp criticism of Volodymyr Zelensky, saying the Ukrainian leader is “more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4098,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4096\/revisions\/4098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}