A furious Volodymyr Zelensky hit a key Russian oil hub hours after Donald Trump blindsided him by striking a major diesel deal with Vladimir Putin.
And in the immediate aftermath of the Trump-Putin call, the Russian dictator staged a new strike on sleeping Ukrainian civilians in Zaporizhzhia killing at least three children, all girls, among seven dead, with ten wounded and ’16 missing’.
It brings the total to almost 90 civilians killed by Russia in three days.
A heartbroken woman, Natalia, said: ‘When I ran to my mother, she was still gasping for air.
‘She had fallen face down, and her entire face was shattered. I couldn’t reach her. There was debris everywhere.’
Her mother died in the brutal Putin air strike.
The diesel pact between Mr Trump and Putin stunned Kyiv, with the Ukrainian leader accusing the US president of ‘weakness’ by caving in to Putin.
But Mr Trump accused Mr Zelensky of ignoring six pleas to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries which were raising prices, especially for diesel in the US ahead of midterm elections, according to a report by Axios.
Ukraine hit Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk oil terminal – a key export hub – overnight
It came hours after relations between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky soured over a major diesel deal for Russia to supply diesel to ease US pump prices
Twisting the knife, Putin’s foreign affairs aide Yury Ushakov said the one-and-a-half hour call with Mr Trump was so friendly ‘neither side wanted to hang up first’.
Mr Trump said he was ‘ready to continue communicating with Vladimir Putin this evening, through the night, and into the next day‘.
Mr Zelensky hit back after admitting being blindsided by the US suspending sanctions to buy Russian diesel.
In devastating overnight strikes, he pummelled the key Yug Rusi oil-loading terminal in Rostov-on-Don, which handles petroleum products from the Novoshakhtinsk refinery.
There were fires at the key exporting hub with a 3.5 million ton annual capacity after a 50-drone swarm.
A linked railway bridge in Rostov-on-Don was also damaged, with traffic halted in both directions, and two ships in the Sea of Azov were reportedly attacked.
Ukrainian officials defiantly threatened to keep striking Russian oil facilities.
Hitting back at Mr Trump, Mr Zelensky said overnight: ‘Russia is weaker on the front lines than at any other time during the war. That is why Putin relies on terror.
‘That is why he relies on attempts to reach backroom deals for one concession or another, to buy more time and opportunities for the war.
‘Any weakening of sanctions against Russia without a clear and lasting de-escalation agreement with Russia is an obvious sign of weakness.’
Mr Zelensky accused Mr Trump of ‘weakness’ in caving in to Mr Putin
Mr Zelensky accused the US of making ‘an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged’.
But the deal Mr Trump struck with Putin would mean diesel prices ‘coming down in record numbers and fast’, the US President said.
He added: ‘Lower prices for Americans, particularly ranchers and truckers is my greatest priority.’
With the US midterm elections looming next month and prices at the pumps rising rapidly, Mr Trump had been under pressure to lift the economic burden.
Hailing the deal as ‘a strong one not a weak one’ on his Truth Social account, he said that 300,000 tons of diesel would be released immediately by Russia ‘to the American and global marketplace’ followed by 500,000 tons in November and another million after that.
He added that a further three million tons of Russian diesel would be delivered ‘within a short period’, depending on Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries.
Triumphant Russian official Yury Ushakov, a foreign affairs aide, tormented Ukraine by claiming the one-and-a-half-hour call with Mr Trump was so friendly ‘neither side wanted to hang up first’.
And speaking to reporters outside the White House, Mr Trump said ‘massive amounts’ of oil would be coming in and he ‘wanted to thank President Putin’.
Speaking today, Ukrainian former Vice PM Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said the Trump-Putin deal would be no different to Mr Trump buying diesel from Osama Bin Laden if that was available.
She accused Mr Trump of ‘clear hypocrisy’ after previously threatening other countries with sanctions for buying Russian oil, and ‘appeasement of the aggressor’.
‘If we asked every single American would they be fine if Donald Trump was buying, say if it was available, diesel from Osama Bin Laden and they were fine with this then something is profoundly wrong with the United States of America,’ she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
‘It is an unacceptable and totally painful move on the part of the American president and it also goes against the interests of the US itself and the European community.’
She suggested that the Ukrainian negotiators in Miami would now have a difficult time at the table when the US had blindsided her country with the diesel deal.
Asked if Russian diesel would really cut prices when it appeared to still be a relatively small amount, former Mr Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore told Radio 4: ‘Every little bit helps.
‘If you put more diesel on the market, that’s going to bring the price down and we are now in a situation in many states where truckers are paying as much as $7 a barrel for diesel which is a lot when it used to be less than $4 dollars.’
Mr Moore said the ‘biggest issue for American voters right now is the issue of affordability’ and ‘the high price of gasolene and diesel’ and it would be ‘a blessed relief to truck drivers and motorists’ if prices came down.
Meanwhile, a UK government spokesman said it would continue ‘to maintain pressure on Russia through the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed by the UK, increasing the cost of Putin’s aggression and supporting efforts to secure a just and lasting peace’.
Shortly after Mr Trump’s announcement, the US Treasury formally issued a temporary licence allowing Russian diesel into the market.
A Ukrainian official claimed that during eight-hour US-Ukrainian talks in Miami on Friday, Mr Trump’s negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner threatened that America could cut off Ukraine from its lifeline intelligence if Mr Zelensky kept up strikes on Russian oil facilities, reported Axios.
This was denied by a US official who was quoted as saying: ‘Zelensky is misreading the room.
‘By continuing to hit refineries, he is eroding the good will that he has built with Trump over the last six months.’
The Ukrainian negotiating team left Miami early after the diesel deal was announced.
Mr Trump gave the Kremlin despot a lifeline with an estimated £3.4billion deal soon after Putin’s aircraft was disrupted in its return to Moscow by a Ukrainian drone swarm around the Russian capital.
Russia immediately lifted its export curbs on diesel.
A Russian guided aerial bomb strike hit a five-storey residential apartment building in Zaporizhzhia at 5am.
In all more than two dozen residential buildings were damaged.
An entrance section collapsed amid reports of seven dead including three under-age girls – continuing a recent savage Russian pattern of targeting Ukrainian civilians with terror strikes.
Russian air defences shot down 560 Ukrainian drones overnight.
