Zelensky Accuses Trump of Spreading ‘Totally False Information’ on Energy Crisis

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview with Steven Bartlett, pushed back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are driving up diesel prices in America. Zelensky described Trump’s argument as a deliberate diversion, accusing him of deflecting attention away from Iran, a country the US attacked on February 28th, leading to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“The volume of diesel exports from Russia is so negligible that it has zero impact on prices in the U.S.,” Zelensky said, dismissing Trump’s assertion as “totally false information.” He then turned the question around: if Trump is genuinely concerned about American energy costs, why does the U.S. continue to export its own energy? “Why do American companies export energy?” Zelensky asked rhetorically. “Well, because how can the president of the United States ban private sector exports?It sells and money comes in.”

Zelensky argued that Trump’s focus on Ukraine is a misdirection from the real driver of global oil and diesel volatility: the Strait of Hormuz. “Everything gets shifted onto us,” the Ukrainian leader said, “and I’m made the target as the leader of our country.” According to Zelensky, “the root of the problem” lies in the strategic waterway where crude exports and other maritime traffic have slowed to a trickle following the  U.S.-Israeli military operations against Iran. That conflict, not Ukraine’s defensive strikes on Russian infrastructure, he insisted, is what truly threatens global energy supplies and prices.