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Zelensky: sanctions pause encourages Putin

The Ukrainian president asks allies to maintain economic pressure on Russia.

Follow-up to: Trump suspends new sanctions against Russia Saturday, 17 October 2026, 05:30

Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday criticised the American decision to suspend new sanctions against Russia. According to the Ukrainian president, the concession gives Vladimir Putin further reason to continue the attacks.

Zelensky called on supporters to speak out in favour of American sanctions, news agency AP reported on Saturday. AFP reports that he warned on social media of the consequences of reduced economic pressure on Moscow. Kyiv is thus responding directly to the new American approach. Zelensky expects the measure to prompt Russia to launch more attacks; this is not an established consequence of the decision.

It had previously emerged that Donald Trump is preventing new measures under the Graham Act from being applied. The presidential order is dated Friday 16 October. Trump signed the underlying legislation on 18 September. In the executive order, he invokes a waiver authority under the same law and the national interest of the United States.

The scope matters: this decision does not mean that all American sanctions against Russia will disappear. The text explicitly preserves measures previously imposed under certain existing executive orders. Moreover, the exemptions for the new provisions have no fixed end date. They remain in force until the president or the relevant administration officials deem further action appropriate. It therefore remains unclear when Washington will deploy these new instruments of pressure.

In a separate report on his remarks, Kyiv Post writes that Zelensky welcomed support from both American parties for the sanctions legislation. His criticism concerns the subsequent blocking of its implementation. That distinction makes clear whom his appeal addresses: he is not only addressing the White House, but also seeking support from American politicians who consider economic pressure on Russia necessary.

Zelensky also linked his objection to the American agreements on Russian diesel. According to Kyiv Post's report, he regards these as an earlier step in the same direction. He said he continued to hope that Trump would help bring an end to Russian attacks and the war. At the same time, he rejected the idea that economic concessions to Moscow were the right way to achieve this.

In assessing this conflict, the legal action and political expectations must be kept separate. The order describes which new measures Washington is leaving unapplied. Zelensky primarily disputes their expected impact on Russian actions. His warning is therefore an argument for continued pressure, not evidence that the effect of the sanctions pause is already measurable.

For European allies, the response matters because of that call to maintain pressure. The sources consulted do not yet indicate any new joint response by those allies to Zelensky's statement. Nor is it clear whether Washington will amend its decision in response to the criticism. For now, the American exemption and Ukraine's rejection of it constitute the concrete new state of affairs.

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