At a crunch Brussels summit, European leaders backed Ukraine’s president as Trump slammed Kyiv’s refinery strikes, a US–Russia diesel deal anger allies and Starlink doubts expose Europe’s defence gap.
EU Leaders Rally Around Zelenskiy as Trump Calls Ukrainian Strikes on Russia a “Disgrace”
EU leaders closed ranks behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at a Brussels summit on Friday, 16 October 2026, even as US President Donald Trump launched a fresh attack on Kyiv, branding its strikes on Russian oil refineries “a disgrace.”
The political moment
The gathering came at one of Ukraine’s most difficult junctures of the war: Russian missiles and drones continuing to fall on Ukrainian cities, and deepening fear that Washington will scale back intelligence sharing and weapons supplies. Trump blindsided Zelenskiy last weekend by announcing that Kyiv and Moscow had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities. Facing US midterm elections in November, Trump has blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for pushing up fuel prices he fears could cost him seats. “All he’s doing is making the world oil price higher. Well, I think that’s a disgrace,” Trump said in a Newsmax interview. Ukraine, for its part, says it never halted attacks because Russia never stopped striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure — and Kyiv struck a Russian refinery after Zelenskiy declared Ukraine was abandoning the energy ceasefire Trump had announced.
The diesel fault line
Relations soured further after the US struck a diesel deal with Russia, easing pressure on Moscow in exchange for volume onto world markets — a move Ukraine and European allies denounced. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called such an arrangement “out of the question” for Germany and the EU. Yet European leaders are themselves divided, because energy prices have soared since the Iran war, and the bloc’s own affordability pain exposed fractures on day one of the summit.
The winter package
“We want to end this war as quick as possible. We don’t see now signals from the Russian side that they are ready for this,” Zelenskiy said on arrival, hugging leaders as he entered. “That’s why we have to prepare for the winter… The winter package is not only energy, it’s also air defence and funding.” In the latest attacks, Russian drone strikes on Kharkiv killed three people, while strikes elsewhere left hundreds of thousands without power. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told Reuters the EU would probably need a new loan to cover Ukraine’s budget gap next year: “Last winter was already hell, this one will be once again like hell.” He framed the shortfall as “a European mission,” adding that delegates “cannot get tired of the war in Ukraine, because they are fighting… for us.”
The Starlink problem
Ukraine’s leadership has been alarmed by disruptions to SpaceX’s Starshield — the military-grade version of Starlink — used for battlefield communications and drone operations. A Ukrainian defence ministry source said on Thursday that Starshield receivers were functioning only at speeds up to 100mph (160kph), complicating military use. A US official denied Trump ordered a deliberate slowdown, and Trump said intelligence sharing continues. But the capability gap is undeniable: “Starlink is really necessary for Ukraine. And unfortunately, in short term, Europe can’t replace this capability,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who said Brussels was also preparing a new sanctions package on Russia.
The money
Zelenskiy told Reuters earlier this month that Ukraine had agreed a plan with European partners to close a $27bn deficit in this year’s military spending, enabling drone orders from early 2027. But Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko says a $32.6bn unfunded budget gap remains for next year — and that excludes an estimated $40bn in direct military supplies expected from allies. Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten was blunt: “I am unhappy with the number of countries that have been willing to pledge new financial support to Ukraine.” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker urged caution: “There are so many figures being bandied about that we now need to put them into context.”
Why it matters
The West’s Ukraine policy has effectively split into two policies. Washington is optimising for midterm fuel prices and has re-opened commercial ties with Moscow; Brussels is being pushed to underwrite Ukraine’s survival — financially, militarily and now technologically — without the satellite architecture America supplies. The uncomfortable conclusion from this summit is that European solidarity is being asserted at precisely the moment European dependence is most exposed.
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