PUTIN ON THE CHARM

Trump Sucks Up to Putin After Major Humiliation

The president says he prefers dealing with America’s mortal enemy over the ally it has invaded.

Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putin while attacking the leader of the country that the Russian tyrant has spent more than four and a half years bombing.

“[Volodymyr] Zelensky’s not a good guy for us to deal with,” the 80-year-old president said of his Ukrainian counterpart in a Thursday night interview with Newsmax. “No, I’m not a big fan of Zelensky. He destroyed that country.”

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“Putin hates Zelensky, and Zelensky hates Putin,” he went on. “It should end soon. I think they both would actually like to see it end. But I find Zelensky more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

Trump’s comments came ahead of bombshell revelations on Friday that this week’s orders to limit Ukrainian access to vital frontline communications systems, provided by billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX, had come directly from the White House.

Relations between Washington and its nominal ally in the war between Russia and Ukraine are at their lowest point since Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, berated Zelensky, 48, in the Oval Office last February for not being grateful enough for U.S. support against Putin’s invasion.

Trump announced a shock deal earlier this month to purchase almost 2 million tons of Russian diesel in a frantic bid to lower fuel costs driven by his war with Iran.

That conflict, and its impact on domestic prices, has helped Democrats gain a 9-point lead in the November race for control of the House and Senate.

The move, along with Trump’s calls for Zelensky’s ouster, provoked global outrage after Ukraine spent much of this year attacking Russia’s energy sector to cut off revenue for Putin’s war machine.

Still, Zelensky agreed to a unilateral “energy ceasefire” that Trump had announced on Truth Social last week, apparently without first consulting either Moscow or Kyiv.

But the Ukrainian president then dramatically reversed course on Thursday after the Kremlin repeatedly violated that supposed agreement.

“We’re done,” he told the Financial Times of a three-day stay in attacks on Moscow’s oil infrastructure, just hours before launching major strikes against a refinery in the western Russian region of Ryazan.

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Zelensky further accused Trump of capitulating to Putin out of admiration for the Russian dictator.

“He speaks about it openly and loudly that he loves such people and he respects such people,” the Ukrainian leader said. “Because for him people who can be leaders 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, it means they can be very strong.”

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The break between Washington and Kyiv follows intense pressure from the White House for Ukraine to abide by Trump’s impromptu moratorium.

Zelensky said U.S. officials threatened to cut off the supply of vital military intelligence.

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He also said Ukrainian forces subsequently suffered a loss of access to early-warning systems for incoming missile attacks, as well as slowed coverage from SpaceX’s Starshield service.

It remains unclear which White House official ultimately decided to limit the military-grade version of billionaire Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, or who relayed those orders to the Defense Department, Reuters reports.

Putin’s forces have continued pounding Ukraine, killing at least 15 people in attacks earlier this week. Another three died in Russian drone strikes on Friday, which also left around 370,000 people without electricity, though it is not known whether the disruption to U.S. intelligence or satellite services contributed to any of those deaths.

Trump has denied threatening to cut off military intelligence, while his officials told Ukrainian forces that any interruptions to military system services resulted from a glitch.

Zelensky disputed that account even before it was confirmed that the Starshield outage was due to White House orders.

Musk also wrote in an X post on Wednesday that the network used in Ukraine is “owned and controlled by the U.S. government,” and that “any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.

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