Zelensky: Putin personally rejected an energy truce

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on November 13 that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally rejected a proposal for a bilateral energy truce. Zelensky told journalists about this on Friday.

According to him, during US-mediated consultations in Abu Dhabi, the Russian delegation said it had no mandate for a truce agreement and passed the decision to the Kremlin. After Putin's talks in Moscow with US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Kyiv received confirmation of the refusal.

Zelensky said that in the end it was agreed that the American team would fly to Putin and discuss this with him, and as of today the situation remains unchanged: "The truce is not supported personally by Putin."

He rejected Putin's proposal for a "humanitarian operation" in Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, calling it a military ploy to seize the city and open a corridor to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. "This is an absolutely primitive move," Zelensky said, explaining that the Russian story about "civilians" in Kostiantynivka is Putin's reaction to the fact that he has been unable to take that city, because otherwise he cannot take it.

According to him, Russian forces have been unable to take Kostiantynivka for 18 months and are seeking to repeat the tactic of a local truce in occupied Oleshky, where under humanitarian cover they rotated troops and brought in heavy equipment. He added that if the lives of civilians mattered to them, they could propose similar operations in villages near Oleshky, but Russia did not propose any of those villages, and instead proposed Kostiantynivka, because "after Kostiantynivka come Kramatorsk and Sloviansk."

Separately, Zelensky warned that speed limits of 161 km/h on Starshield satellite terminals in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine carry dangerous political consequences and reduce the effectiveness of air defense at the front. Zelensky said that, unfortunately, Starshield is limited and "the speed is limited to a maximum of 161 km/h in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine," adding that such a decision is very dangerous because it already sounds political.

According to him, Ukrainian interceptors such as Bars drones, which depend on Starshield, can no longer hit high-speed Shahed jet drones on their approach to Ukrainian cities. The restrictions have been in place for five days, although SpaceX told Ukraine's Ministry of Defense that it had made no changes; this contradicts assurances from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Starshield operates mainly under the control of the American government.

Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons sent SpaceX chief Elon Musk a four-page letter demanding the preservation of all internal communications, network logs, software changes and correspondence with the White House, the Pentagon and Russian officials since September 1; the deadline for compliance is November 30. The letter says that the October and November restrictions now create a disturbing possibility that "these vulnerabilities persist even in systems the US government relies on."

Congressmen Gregory Meeks and Adam Smith condemned the renewed restrictions, saying that previous Starshield restrictions contributed to civilian casualties and strengthened Putin's negotiating position, and criticized Donald Trump, Witkoff and Kushner for pressuring Kyiv on territorial concessions.