Zelenskyy says he felt ‘personally betrayed’ by Trump
UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting made his case in Washington on Wednesday, urging the United States to maintain its support for Ukraine and framing the aid as a long-term economic interest and a “business opportunity” for the United States. The trip came amid a row over a US government move that appeared to throttle the Starlink satellite service used by Ukraine’s military — a development Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said left him feeling personally betrayed by Donald Trump.
Streeting delivered his appeal in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US thinktank, before his meeting with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon. Taking questions afterward, he acknowledged “the challenges of recent days,” a reference to the US government’s Monday decision to limit Ukrainian military use of Starlink.
“It was a reminder of two things,” Streeting said. “One is that American support in Ukraine has been significant and it has made, I think, a real impact in the Ukrainian war effort. And we and the Ukrainians would feel the absence of that.” The second, he said, was “an enormous opportunity for the US in terms of the support for Ukraine,” pointing to a future “defence-industrial relationship” between Washington and Kyiv.
The change to Starlink happened without warning at about 1am, when Ukrainian soldiers reported that terminals on drones were no longer working at speeds greater than 100mph, rendering communications inoperable, The Guardian reported. The disruption led to a halt in mid-strike drone attacks on targets in Russian-occupied territory and raised concerns about Ukraine’s ability to intercept new Russian jet-powered attack craft bombing its cities.
A day before Streeting’s visit, Zelenskyy said he felt personally betrayed by Trump after the US government appeared to have throttled a version of the Starlink satellite internet service used by Ukraine’s military, The Guardian reported. Ukrainian officials have also reported that the US has threatened to cut the sharing of intelligence used by Ukraine to detect incoming missiles if Kyiv does not abandon its attacks on refineries — strikes aimed at hurting the Russian economy.
Andy Burnham, meeting Zelenskyy in London on Wednesday, said the UK would stand by Ukraine. “There’s rarely been a more important time for Britain and America to come together,” Streeting said in his CSIS address, making a direct appeal to the American audience.
“The people of Ukraine are fighting for a principle that runs through the finest traditions of American political thought,” he said, “that a free people have a right to determine their own destiny.” He added: “Ukraine may be thousands of miles from American shores, but if aggression is rewarded, if borders can be redrawn by force, if the sovereignty of nations becomes negotiable, the consequences will not remain confined to Ukraine or to my continent.”
Trump has vacillated over supporting Ukraine against Russia since returning to the White House, while support among US Republicans for Kyiv has been mixed, The Guardian reported.
Streeting and Hegseth were also expected to discuss the safety of US military bases in the UK after an Iranian threat prompted the US to withdraw B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, and whether the two countries would come together to help Saudi Arabia, which has come under attack from Yemen’s Houthis, according to The Guardian.
According to The Guardian, Trump has been trying to pressure Ukraine to halt its bombing of Russian oil refineries in what it described as a “desperate attempt” to reduce world oil prices before the US midterm elections, and agreed earlier this month to buy diesel from Russia.