A Ukrainian soldier with a Starlink terminal near the frontline of Russia’s invasion (Reuters/File)

EA on Pat Kenny Show: Trump’s 1st Month of Damage

Friday’s Coverage: Zelensky — Meeting with US Envoy “Restores Hope”…But Trump and Musk Continue Their Lies and Insults

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1643 GMT:

Donald Trump says the second set of US-Russia direct talks on Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine will be held on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

UPDATE 1258 GMT:

Trump officials and advisors who want to end aid to Ukraine are intimidating and trying to isolate those who want to maintain some support.

Vice President J.D. Vance, key Trump aide Stephen Miller, and several administration officials close to Donald Trump Jr. have been central to the effort to sideline those with conservative foreign policy views.

They are targeting Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. He was excluded from direct US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia last Tuesday. He did meet Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday in Kyiv — the “kids’ table” of negotiations, according to some Trumpists — but Trump officials blocked the joint press conference after the meeting.

On Friday, the envoy praised Zelensky and senior Ukrainian officials, in contrast to Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks on the President (see Original Entry).

One Trump advisor told those advocating support for Ukraine to shut up:

They should just let the president — who is in charge of the United States’ foreign policy — conduct foreign policy. He campaigned on this stuff, and the American people roundly gave him their support.

Nobody elected them nationally. None of them have gotten 77 million votes. And none of them have gotten us out of a war. So maybe they should just relax and let the president lead.

Sources said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz — both involved in the US-Russia talks — have tempered their past support for Ukraine because of the threat to them within the Administration.

Rubio “knows the knives are out for him,” one of the people close to the secretary said. “He knows that [Trumpist activist Richard Grenell] is gunning for his job and will go to Trump and demand he fires Marco the first time he says anything that contradicts the boss.

UPDATE 1208 GMT:

Officials say Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is still not prepared to accept the Trump Administration’s draft agreement for handover of Ukrainian rare earth minerals.

The officials said there are still a number of problematic issues. They said it does not reflect a partnership, has only one-sided obligations for Ukraine, and does not resolve the requirement of security guarantees.

The second draft was virtually unchanged from the first US proposal, said New York Times staff who reviewed the document, four current and former Ukrainian officials, and a Ukrainian businessman.

A Ukrainian official “close to the matter” summarized:

In the form in which the draft is now, the President is not ready to accept, we are still trying to make changes and add constructiveness.

There are no American obligations in the agreement regarding guarantees or investments, everything about them is very vague, and they want to extract $500 billion from us.

What kind of partnership is this?…And why do we have to give $500 billion? There is no answer.

UPDATE 1112 GMT:

Ukrainian drones struck a substation of the Novovelychkovskaya oil pumping station in the Krasnodar region in southwest Russia on Friday.

The attack effectively disrupted the station’s operations, said a Ukrainian security official.

The official added that Novovelychkovskaya is one of the “key facilities for transporting oil in the Kuban region, supplying the Afipsky and Ilysky oil refineries”.

This is the eighth successful SBU special operation since the beginning of the year targeting Russia’s oil refining and pumping facilities. Each such explosion results in multimillion-dollar losses for Russia and complicates the provision of fuel to the Russian army.

Russian media outlets claims the drone attack had been repelled.

UPDATE 0858 GMT:

Amid the Trump Administration’s pressure and Donald Trump’s lies and insults, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation:

Today, Ukrainian and U.S. teams are working on a draft agreement between our governments. This agreement can add value to our relations — what matters most is getting the details right to ensure it truly works.

UPDATE 0853 GMT:

At least three civilians have been killed and 26 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

Air defenses downed 82 of 162 drones launched by Russia across 13 regions of Ukraine overnight. Another 75 drones were lost to electronic counter-measures.

A rail worker in the east of Kyiv was slain by a drone. Fragments fell on private residences in the Solomyanskyi district to the west, triggering a fire and smashing windows in a nearby building.

In the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, three people were injured by a Russian guided bomb on the town of Huliaipole.

One person died on Thursday in a attack on a village west of Huliaipole.

In the Kherson region in the south, one person was killed and four injured amid attacks on 33 settlements. Residential buildings and a gas pipeline were damaged.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine, a man was injured and enterprises, five multi-story buildings, cars, gas pipelines, and power lines were damaged.

In the Donetsk region in the east, three civlians were injured when Russian forces dropped at least four bombs on Kostyantynivka, hitting a multi-story building on Saturday morning.

Part of the first five floors collapsed, and two civilians are still under the rubble.

UPDATE 0837 GMT:

A second direct US-Russia meeting over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine will take place within the next two weeks, says Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.

Ryabkov told State outlet RIA that the specific location, in a third country, is being agreed. He did not name the participants.

He declared that there is “principled agreement” on both sides to hold consultations to work out “the entire block of so-called irritants”.

Three sources told Reuters that Russia may agree to using $300 billion of its frozen assets in Europe for reconstruction in Ukraine. However, Moscow will insist that part of the money is spent on the areas which it occupies.

UPDATE 0822 GMT:

The Trump Administration has prepared a draft UN resolution, rivalling one from Ukraine and its European partners, marking the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Amid their direct talks with Russia, without Ukraine and Europe, Administration officials have objected to any mention of “Russian aggression”.

The three-paragraph US draft mourns the casualties of the “Russia-Ukraine conflict” and “implores a swift end”. It also affirms “that the principal purpose of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security and to peacefully settle disputes” and “further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia”.

There is no apparent reference to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is urging UN members to approve the “simple, historic” resolution.

Russia’s UN Ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said the US draft is a “good move”. He said American officials briefed him on the text before circulating it to the other members of the General Assembly.

On Friday, Donald Trump modified his blame of Ukraine for starting Russia’s invasion.

Earlier in the week, he posted that Kyiv “should have never started it” and should have “made a deal”. In a radio interview yesterday, he said, “Russia attacked, but they [Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Joe Biden] shouldn’t have let him attack.”

UPDATE 0807 GMT:

European Union Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius has rejected the Trump Administration’s criticism that Europe has not been supporting Ukraine’s resistance of Russia’s invasion.

We need to look precisely at the numbers. During three years of the war, EU support to Ukraine, which includes military support, budgetary support, and humanitarian support, was around €134 billion ($140 billion). If you calculate the same support from the United States, it’s around $100 billion.

So, the overall support from the European Union is 30% bigger than support from the United States.

Kubulius noted that the US has provided around $60 billion in military, and Europe 48 billion euros ($50 billion). He says both need to step up the assistance.

If we are looking at the scale of support, unfortunately, both the EU and American support for Ukrainian defense per year does not reach 0.1% of GDP.

We need to look at how to increase support for Ukraine because we want to achieve this formula: “Peace through strength.” Strength demands, from our side, bigger military support for Ukraine.

He said of the Trump Administration, “I don’t know if the Americans will stop providing support to Ukraine. I still hope they understand how important it is to give Ukraine additional strength.”

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The Trump Administration is threatening to cut Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellite internet terminals if the Zelensky Government does not hand over rare earth minerals, say “three sources familiar with the negotiations”.

Starlink — owned by US unelected co-President Elon Musk — is crucial securing communications amid Russia’s three-year invasion. Last year, around 42,000 terminals were in operation across the military, hospitals, businesses, and aid organizations.

On February 3, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Vadym Sukharevskyi, said Starlink was still the only way to maintain effective control over battlefield operations, especially when for drones.

Sukharevskyi said Ukraine is in talks with allies to “attempt to create an alternative — effective and our own, in terms of military operations”.

The Administration presented a draft proposal, via Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv on February 12, in which Ukraine would supply $500 billion of minerals in return for past US aid.

President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the hastily-prepared draft, saying it was “not ready”, written according to US rather than Ukrainian law, and provided inadequate compensation.

The rejection triggered Donald Trump’s lies and diatribe against Zelensky as a “dictator” who has only “4%” support, and the demand that he hold elections despite martial law and Russia’s invasion.

On Friday, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz insist, to the Conservative Political Action Conference, that Ukraine will soon agree to give up the minerals.

Well, look, here’s the bottom line. President Zelensky is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term.

And that is good for Ukraine. What better could you have for Ukraine than to be in an economic partnership with the United States?

Trump then posted that the parties are “pretty close” to an agreement. He declared that Ukraine was “very happy” and the US would soon “get our money back”.

The Administration first issued the Starlink threat after Zelensky’s rejection of the draft agreement. It was renewed by Trump’s envoy Keith Kellogg, who met with Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on Thursday.

An official briefed on the Kellogg discussions said, “Ukraine runs on Starlink. They consider it their North Star. Losing Starlink…would be a massive blow.”

Kellogg posted on Friday about “extensive and positive discussions with Zelensky,, the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war and his talented national security team”.

But Trump again insulted Zelensky, in an interview with Fox Radio. saying the President does not need to be involved in negotiations to end Russia’s invasion:

I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you.

When Zelensky said, “Oh, he wasn’t invited to a meeting,” I mean, it wasn’t a priority because he did such a bad job in negotiating so far.