President Trump has been twisting President Zelensky's arm about attacks on Russian refineries by cutting off warnings of incoming attacks and by limiting its use of Starshield without any warning in advance. According to Trump, Zelensky is the reason there's no deal to end the war in Ukraine while Putin is ready to bring it to an end.
This version of events completely flies in the face of, well, everything. Ukraine, in fact, stopped attacking Russian refineries when Trump announced a "ceasefire deal." Meanwhile, Russia kept attacking Ukrainian power infrastructure, cutting off electricity to around 600,000 people. Also, Russia wasn't doing this covertly. They said directly that they had no interest in a ceasefire with Ukraine.
Lavrov: “There will be no ceasefire just so Zelensky can be supplied with weapons again” The Kremlin continues to mock US peace initiatives while blaming Ukraine for derailing the negotiations (how predictable). Russia’s foreign minister said that Zelensky was directly challenging Trump by criticizing the US-Russia agreement on diesel supplies. However, the Ukrainian president said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would stop striking Russian oil refineries if they received additional interceptor missiles for air defense. After a three-day moratorium, Kyiv resumed its attacks, saying that Russia had continued striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure during that time. Russia did not observe the truce at all. And when it got hit back, it ran to complain to Trump. What a pathetic spectacle.
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 15, 2026
Meanwhile, Russia's hybrid attacks on Europe also continue to escalate. This is Putin's effort to turn up the heat on NATO countries supporting Ukraine without provoking an actual war.
On Thursday, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said drones had struck two ships in Romanian territorial waters of the Black Sea overnight. A third vessel was hit just outside Romania’s territorial waters, leaving seven crew members missing.
European authorities have accused Russia of targeting the ships, and four other ships in nearby waters off Bulgaria days earlier...
Diplomats increasingly fear what is known as a boiling-frog situation, where Russia gradually gets bolder and NATO’s public grows inured, normalizing or ignoring incessant aggression.
You can add these latest attacks to a long list of earlier ones.
Attacks in the Black Sea follow months of airborne incursions into NATO territory by Russian warplanes, drones and missiles. Europeans have also accused Moscow of staging or provoking dozens of acts of sabotage and cyberespionage across the continent, showing a growing appetite for risk over recent months. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz accused Russia of attempting to attack planes at a Leipzig airport with explosive-laden drones in August...
NATO has responded to other Russian provocations since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The alliance boosted its policing in the Baltic Sea after a succession of cables and pipelines were damaged or ruptured, in what Western officials said were suspected Russian acts of sabotage. The incidents of suspected sabotage then dropped sharply.
Now Russia appears to be taking this conflict into space.
As of October 15, 2026, based on commercial space situational awareness data, a Russian satellite called Cosmos 2612 is on a trajectory that will bring it into very close proximity to a U.S.-registered commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite. The satellite, which supports Ukraine, is operated by ICEYE, a company founded in Finland...
No one should assume to know what Russia will do next with Cosmos 2612, but the potential for a threat is there. Washington and its allies may think that hostile actions targeting a Western satellite would be highly escalatory—but Moscow may be willing to take that risk, believing the West will not respond forcefully. Russia may see little risk of escalation, a belief that is reflected across Russian actions in Europe.
Bottom line: Russia flew drones with Semtex warheads into planes in Germany and there has been no response. So why would Putin hesitate to attack a few western satellites?
According to this WSJ story, these increasing hybrid warfare attacks on NATO are one factor pushing Trump toward demanding Ukraine surrender and agree to Russia's demands.
Trump has grown increasingly concerned about the Russian campaign inside alliance territory, current and former administration officials said, and that played a role in his recent decision to revamp U.S. efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
Pulling the plug on Ukrainian assistance in response to Russian threats against NATO isn't going to produce any kind of lasting peace. Instead, it shows Putin that his hybrid warfare attacks are working. He can't win the war on the battlefield, but if Putin can effectively pull the U.S. onto his side in this conflict, he can win it diplomatically.
President Ronald Reagan once said, "We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression." He was right about that. What Trump is doing right now is responding to the hybrid attacks and high diesel prices by crashing out at Ukraine and demanding they stop fighting back. That's a form of weakness that will only invite more Russian aggression in the future.