Zelensky Says Kyiv Got No Missile Warning. Trump Says the US Is “Sharing Intel”
Zelensky says Kyiv had no warning of Tuesday’s missiles; Trump says the US is sharing intel. Twelve senators and the Kremlin weigh in on the diesel deal.
In this article
Context
On Tuesday evening, 13 October, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv’s CHP-4 power plant. Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Facebook: “Once again, no early warning from our partners.” The same day, Zelensky told NPR that the Trump administration had warned Ukraine it could lose intelligence sharing unless Ukrainian drones stop hitting Russian oil refineries. At the White House, Donald Trump answered reporters: “We are helping them, and we are sharing intel.”
The same day, twelve US senators asked Trump to cancel his Russian diesel deal with Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said the deal has nothing to do with its position on ending the war. This piece follows the new statements. The earlier ones are in our reports on the senators’ challenge to the diesel licence and on Zelensky’s reaction to the deal.
Key takeaways
Zelensky says Kyiv got no early warning of Tuesday’s missiles. Trump says the intelligence is still flowing. The White House declined to tell NPR whether it had threatened a cutoff, and pointed to Trump’s remark. The senators’ letter and the Kremlin’s answer show the diesel deal being argued as a question of Ukraine’s security as well as fuel prices.
What was said about the missiles
Zelensky’s Facebook post, reported by Euronews, said Ukraine’s systems picked up the missiles only as they neared the city. “The main target was energy infrastructure, specifically the CHP-4,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, it was hit.” In remarks Euronews carried, he called the situation “absolutely unjust.”
On X, as PBS NewsHour reported, he described the barrage as “particularly vile” and said: “This is precisely what helps prevent people from being killed, when there is an early warning about ballistic missiles.” He also said Russia used more than 100 weapons from Monday evening, and that 41 people were wounded in Kharkiv in one evening. Four people were killed there when a residential building was destroyed, PBS reported.
Ukrainian officials gave Euronews two explanations for the missing warning: hard-to-detect missiles, or possible technical issues. A senior Ukrainian official told PBS, without being named, that the lack of warning was a “failure.”
Analysis
The NPR interview and the White House reply
In an interview with NPR’s Joanna Kakissis in Kyiv on 13 October, Zelensky said the administration had warned that intelligence sharing could be cut off unless Ukraine’s long range drone strikes on refineries inside Russia stopped. He called the diesel sanctions relief “a weak decision by strong partners.” He said he learned of Trump’s energy truce announcement “through social like you.”
NPR reported that the White House did not say whether it had threatened to halt intelligence sharing again. It pointed to what Trump told reporters on Tuesday: “We are helping them and we are sharing intel, we want the war to end.” CP24, carrying a report on the strike, quoted Trump adding: “We want the war to end, so we’re working with them and with Russia on getting the war to end.”
His post said “partners” and named none. On the energy truce, he said, according to the same report: “The facts show that the Russians do not consider themselves bound by what the President of the United States said.”
Analysis
What is the US intelligence role in Ukraine’s air defence?
Ukraine relies heavily on Western intelligence, and especially American intelligence, for early warning of ballistic missile launches, Euronews noted. Intelligence sharing was paused once before, in March 2025, after the Oval Office clash between Trump and Zelensky, and resumed within days. The White House has so far put one sentence on the record about it this week: Trump’s remark to reporters.
Analysis
Twelve senators and a Kremlin denial
On 13 October, twelve senators, six Republicans and six Democrats, sent Trump a letter, published by Senator Dick Durbin’s office. The Republicans are Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, Alan Armstrong, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn. The Democrats are Durbin, Richard Blumenthal, Jeanne Shaheen, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jack Reed and Chris Coons.
The letter calls the deal “a betrayal of our Allies; it should be rescinded.” It asks Trump to “Withdraw from this agreement, rescind General License No. 135,” and to use the authorities in the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. It sets no deadline.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the diesel agreement is not linked to Moscow’s position in negotiations to end the war, according to UA.News, which gave his words in indirect speech. He rejected reports that Washington hoped the deal would make Russia more willing to compromise, and told reporters to ask Trump about the energy truce.
How the statements connect
The order of the day matters. Trump announced the diesel deal on 9 October. His energy truce announcement came on Sunday. By Tuesday evening, Zelensky said Russia was striking a power plant, and said the Russians “do not consider themselves bound.”
Atlantic Council analysts have been reading the same sequence. Maksym Beznosiuk and William Dixon wrote on 13 October that Russia “responded by bombing a series of Ukrainian power plants.” They added: “This very public snub underlines the Kremlin’s lack of interest in US-led peace efforts.”
On the diesel deal itself, Reed Blakemore of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center wrote in an Atlantic Council dispatch that it is “best then to read this decision as a political/diplomatic wager rather than as energy policy.” Charles Lichfield called Russia’s added exports “a drop in the ocean” for the global diesel market. Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state, said the deal “encourages Putin to continue his war,” though if tied to an energy ceasefire it “might not be such a liability for the US.”
Fried’s condition is the test. Peskov says there is no link between the diesel deal and Moscow’s position. The truce Trump announced has not been confirmed by the Kremlin. John Herbst, a former ambassador to Ukraine, wrote in the same dispatch: “Putin never contradicts Trump publicly.”
Each statement answers a different audience. The senators wrote to the president. Zelensky spoke to NPR and posted on Facebook and X. Peskov spoke to Russian and foreign reporters. Trump spoke to the White House press pool. The intelligence question is the one all four touch, and only Trump’s sentence addresses it directly.
What to watch
Whether Trump or the Pentagon states the terms of intelligence sharing in writing. Whether the White House answers NPR’s question about a cutoff threat. Whether the Treasury acts on the senators’ demand to rescind General License 135. Whether the Kremlin confirms or rejects the energy truce, as Peskov has so far done neither. The next Russian ballistic strike on Kyiv will show whether Ukraine gets a warning, and Zelensky has shown he will say publicly when it does not.
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