Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked EU leaders for at least €70bn ($78bn) more for next year and said Donald Trump's diesel deal with Russia would put cash "straight into Putin's pocket", as the bloc's Brussels summit closed on October 16 without a budget deal or a decision on Ukraine. 

"The war will cost €155 billion next year. And we need at least €70 billion more from you - for defence, for weapons, and for our resilience. This is a realistic amount. And I ask you to find this support," Zelenskiy told the leaders in an address he later posted on X. Ukraine could produce two or three times more drones, depending on the type, "but we simply don't have enough money for that", he said.

The €155bn ($174bn) war bill leaves the increasingly dysfunctional European economy with the question of how to pay. Leaders who lined up behind Kyiv after Trump's turn towards Moscow failed to agree the bloc's own 2028-2034 budget and pushed it to an extraordinary summit on November 26, and Kyiv has told the G7 that €40bn ($45bn) of its 2027 defence needs is unfunded.

"And now we can see how cash will start flowing back into Russia through the diesel deal," Zelenskiy told a press conference, Reuters reported. "This diesel deal will never be enough to offset the impact of the Strait of Hormuz on global markets. But it will put more money straight into Putin's pocket to fund this war." He called Moscow's approach to talks "a parody of a genuine desire to end the war".

European Council President Antonio Costa said it was "no time to relieve Russia's sanctions", and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said "we will not lift any sanctions unless Russia stops this war", DW reported. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told Reuters that the EU would probably have to lend Ukraine more to cover next year's budget gap. "Last winter was already hell, this one will be once again like hell," he said.

Asked whether Trump was using him as a scapegoat for high energy prices, Zelenskiy paused, smiled and said "this is my answer", to laughter in the room. Trump had called Ukraine's renewed refinery strikes "a disgrace" in a Newsmax interview and said: "I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin."

As IntelliNews argued in an opinion piece this week, Trump has not only withdrawn the last of America’s support for Uraine, by withhold and blocking military support, he appears to be actively working to facilitate Ukraine’s defeat. However, his motivations and exactly what support has been withdrawn remains unclear.

Zelenskiy said Starshield, the military version of Elon Musk's Starlink that Ukraine uses on the battlefield and to down drones far from the front, was working better but had not been fully restored, and that the disruption put civilians at risk. A US official has denied that Trump ordered a slowdown. "Starlink is really necessary for Ukraine. And unfortunately, in short term, Europe can't replace this capability," said the EU's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

A group of US lawmakers meeting Zelenskiy in Kyiv on October 9 offered to extend Starlink coverage 300km (186 miles) into Russia, so Ukraine could hit Russian missile launchers, if Kyiv halted strikes on Russian refineries. Zelenskiy signalled he was willing to pause the strikes for 100 days, the Wall Street Journal  said. It did not say whether the lawmakers spoke for Trump, whose administration this week refused Kyiv any reward for halting the strikes.

Moscow, for its part, accused Kyiv of derailing US peace efforts. Ukraine "is coming into serious conflict with the peace efforts of the United States and American negotiators", Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in comments to journalists, after a drone hit a refinery south of Moscow. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Russia's refineries can make twice as much diesel as the country uses, enough to export to the US, and that EU criticism of the diesel deal ran counter to consumers' interests, TASS reported.

As Zelenskiy meets with the European leadership to plead for more help, the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate. Russian drones hit an outdoor market in Kharkiv on the morning of October 16, killing two vendors and injuring 13 people, Meduza reported, while strikes elsewhere left hundreds of thousands without power. French President Emmanuel Macron said it was "crucial" that Ukraine receive "all the means necessary to protect itself" as Russia's brutal winter campaign escalates rapidly. 

As Ukraine's needs mushroom, the EU continues to dither over how to respond. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said member states were "incredibly far apart" on the seven-year budget that includes almost €100bn in funding for Ukraine, Reuters reported. "There isn't even a glimpse, as they say, a shred of agreement on this," he said.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the bloc would have to find more money as Kyiv warns of a large budget hole next year. "We will have to increase the funds again here in order to really assist Ukraine on a lasting basis," he said as he arrived, AFP reported. He also slapped down a US proposal to move part of Russia's immobilised central bank reserves into a vehicle overseen by Washington, which envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner put to European delegates in Miami. "These are assets that are frozen in Europe, and they should remain frozen in Europe. This is our business, and we will decide on it," Merz said.