Volodymyr Zelensky chose a Sunday, 18 October 2026 interview on NBC's Meet the Press to confront Donald Trump in public. He said a formal American alignment with Vladimir Putin would be “a historic mistake” and “a big tragedy”. In the same breath he said he still wanted to trust the US president and hoped he would change his decisions. The confrontation is the news; the list of measures from recent days is its context, not a separate article about sanctions.

Zelensky told Kristen Welker that Ukraine “will not prevail” if Washington and Moscow “will be together”. Asked about Trump's remark that he was “more difficult to deal with than Putin”, he said he was “very honest” with his American partner: better an open ally than a killer with a smile. He still used the word “ally”.

On Friday Trump waived, by executive order, most of the new congressional sanctions on Russia, citing the national interest. Zelensky called the move a strengthening of Putin's will to occupy Ukraine and mentioned the bill tied to the late senator Lindsey Graham. He said the American diesel deal with Russia would not really move US oil prices, because the rise came from the Hormuz blockage, not from Ukraine.

Intelligence sharing, he said, was “blocked” for a few days, including during ballistic attacks, then “deblocked”. He is thankful it resumed. On Starlink, Ukrainian officials believe the military-grade speed limit followed “a message from the American government” to SpaceX; Elon Musk applied it technically. Zelensky said he was due to speak to US negotiators on Sunday and remained open to a meeting, “even with all the difficult circumstances”.

AFP, via France 24, confirms the thanks for restored intelligence and the “historic mistake” line. A paywalled newspaper is not required to know what he said on television.

Anyone who reduces the interview to an already familiar sanctions wave misses Zelensky's decision to speak plainly, on a Sunday morning, on an American set. Anyone who reads it as a total rupture ignores his sentence: he wants to trust, and he is still asking for a meeting.

Image: Christophe Licoppe / European Union, Ukraine support summit, Kyiv, 2025, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive, not the 18 October 2026 NBC interview.

Sources consulted: U.S. taking Putin's side would be a historic mistake, says Zelenskyy - NBC News; Zelensky tells NBC he is thankful US has unblocked intelligence sharing - France 24 / AFP.