🔶 Zelenskiy: Trump, by suspending sanctions, encourages Putin to continue the war

Volodimir Zelenskiy, the President of Ukraine, wrote in a post on the X network (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, October 17, 2026, saying that stopping U.S. sanctions, reducing pressure on Russia, and financial rewards to Putin encourages him to continue attacks.

Criticism of Trump’s decision continues as Ukraine faces an increase in Russian attacks on energy infrastructure and as the cold season approaches; a situation that has made providing electricity and heating for citizens of this country one of the main concerns.

Donald Trump, the President of the United States, responded that this action, under current circumstances, is “in line with the national interests of the United States.”

Kiril Dmitriev, a Kremlin representative for international economic cooperation and one of Russia’s negotiators, welcomed the decision and wrote that the implementation of the discussed law could have fully stopped economic relations between Russia and the United States and seriously harmed the U.S. economy and global markets.

Zelenskiy also, referring to Russia’s recent attacks, said that more than 15 important power generation and transmission facilities in different regions of Ukraine have been targeted, and that Moscow is trying to disable this country’s resources.

The President of Ukraine emphasized that Russia is trying to bring Ukraine to the point of power outages before the start of winter, and that to stop this process, pressure on Moscow must be increased; he considered the U.S. sanctions package an action that could have been effective in this regard and, according to him, “restoring it can still prove useful.”