Ukraine's President Zelensky is not backing down after Donald Trump's latest threat that Trump wanted to see Zelensky removed from office. Donald Trump said Ukraine needs a new president who will do a deal with Donald Trump and Putin to essentially give all of Eastern Ukraine over to Putin. So not only did Donald Trump cut a deal with Putin on Friday to import Russian diesel, a small amount of Russian diesel, which Trump is claiming is a massive amount. Not only did Donald Trump blindside the Ukrainian delegation that was meeting with Witkoff and Kushner in Miami on Friday, who had no clue that Trump was going to make this announcement, but Donald Trump said he wants to see Zelensky out of the presidency in Ukraine. So how did Zelensky respond?
Well, Zelensky immediately called European allies. He spoke to the Prime Minister of Estonia. He spoke to the Prime Minister of the UK. He spoke with the leaders of France, Finland, Norway, European Union, and others. They will be having an emergency meeting tomorrow on Monday.
By the way, Estonia's Prime Minister echoed what we're hearing from Ukrainian officials. Turn Russian oil refineries into rubble. Let it burn is what the Estonian prime minister says notable because of Estonia's location bordering Russia. And also we're hearing this from top Zelensky officials as well. Also, Zelensky sent the following message to the Trump regime.
Hey, he said Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping 5 glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia. As of now, sadly, 12 people have been confirmed killed in the Ukrainian city, including 3 children. My condolences to all their families and loved ones. And then Zelensky said, so what allowing Russia to sell oil product means was also heard most clearly in Kyiv just now, when after repeated attacks on energy facilities with jet-powered Shaheds, Russia launched a ballistic missile attack as well. Some of the missiles were intercepted.
This once again clearly demonstrates Russia's true intention. They count on prolonging the war, terrorizing ordinary people, and destroying infrastructure. We're seeing a lot of comments like this even on state regime media. Fox reporting on all of this. Why are we buying oil from Russia who gives intelligence to kill our troops in Iran?
Why are we buying oil from them? Lifelong Republican here, voted for Trump 3 times. I'm with Zelensky. Trump's a coward and a traitor. And this MAGA Republican says, just like Biden, I guess they have to blame Biden for everything.
I voted for Trump and vote Republicans up and down the ticket. Buying from Russia is a huge mistake and very hypocritical. Also reports coming out yesterday, which we already knew, we didn't need to see the reports cuz we could see what was happening in Turkmenistan when you had Putin meeting with, uh, the president of Iran, Pasesky, and talking about all of their cooperation together. But the reports yesterday was that Iran has basically all of its ballistic capabilities and drone capabilities, perhaps even more than when the catastrophic war was launched by Trump and Netanyahu. And they've been getting a lot more technology and intelligence from Russia.
And as we've been predicting here, because Iran Shahed drones were given to Russia, which upgraded them to the Geran-4 jet-powered drones, and then those Geran-5 hybrid kind of drone cruise missiles, which are very difficult for you Ukraine to intercept. We believe that Iran now has those Geran-4, Geran-5 capabilities as well. So if Trump and Netanyahu now escalate against Iran again, which we should never have been involved in this catastrophic war in the first place, Iran has greater capabilities to strike back. Well, I would say at the US military bases, but all of those are destroyed. I would say the US aircraft carrier, but there's only one in the region right now, the George Washington, and it's far away, 1,000 kilometers back, because it's scared of Iran's capabilities.
But Iran could reach all of that, but Iran could reach all of the neighbors. And if you all thought that the Ansar Allah Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia were, you know, demonstrative of some of the capabilities— I mean, and those were devastating, horrific strikes on the Riyadh King Khalid Air Base over there— that technology is a scintilla of what the Iranian regime has right now. As Donald Trump underestimates them and goes, oh, they've got nothing, they've got nothing. That we've destroyed their army. Um, I digress.
How else is Zelensky responding? Well, take a look right here as Ukraine continues to pound down on Russian diesel and oil facilities. Take a look right here. Ukraine's General Staff reported a 3rd kamikaze drone strike on the Samara oil pumping station in Russia's Samara region. Notable, 900 kilometers away from the front.
So these FP-1, FP-2 drones, these long-range drones of Ukraine continuing to strike. You'll see another image right here of the Samara oil pumping station in Russia's Samara Oblast right there. It's an important hub, one of the largest tank farms there is, uh, in Russia. Take a look right here what that looks like. Play this clip.
Now, 2 days ago, we reported on the Rostov, on Don and the Rostov. Eye blast where the Nova Stiintz oil terminal building was hit hard by Ukrainian drones. Um, you can take a look at what this looked like over here. I mean, we're talking about a large amount of, uh, oil product coming out of there. Show you what this looked like.
Play this clip.
And here's what it looked like yesterday during the day. Let's play it.
Now, as we noted, Zelensky's been working the phones. Emergency meetings are taking place. And I think it's pretty freaking clear now to all of the NATO nations that the Trump regime, you can't appease them. It's what I've always said. You know, you had Mark Rutte, Mark Rutte, the, uh, NATO Secretary General.
Oh, Donald, you have made us much stronger than you were before. Thank you, Donald. I'm like, that crap is not going to work. And, you know, Mark Rutte may respond and say, well, look, I've been able to, you know, delay the inevitable for, you know, uh, almost 2 years by doing this approach. So I bought us 2 years versus you know, being overtly antagonistic to the Trump regime.
And look, the US provides Ukraine with critical satellite imagery, and Ukraine relies on, on that a lot still. And so because of the US role in NATO, because of the US post-World War II architecture, and because of the way every other president other than Donald Trump conducted themselves, the world relied on this. And then the world or the allies relied on this. And then they would help, uh, the United States economy and the US dollar, the petrodollar, the dollar in general, um, was used throughout the world. That would make the United States richer.
The bond market in the US benefited. The equities markets here all benefited. But Donald Trump was like, oh, we're being taken advantage of. Everybody's taking advantage of us. And so now the world is recognizing once and for all.
And to me, this is like I think it's also linked as Donald Trump sees what's happening in the midterms, as he sees that what he thought was going to happen over these 2 years didn't happen. He wasn't able to seize all control over the United States. He wasn't able to subjugate we the people. So it just kind of mask off. All right, I'm going to show everybody my true colors.
And we all knew that this is what he was. We all knew he's a Putin bootlicker. I mean, that's, that's just an objective reality of what it is. So Zelensky says, I spoke with Prime Minister Burnham of the UK. He said, I spoke to Jonas Gahr Støre, the prime minister of Norway.
He said, I spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron. He spoke with Finland's President Aleksander Stubb, and he spoke with all these people. Now, we're also getting more details about what went down at that Miami meeting. So you had on Friday, you had Witkoff and Kushner meeting with the Ukrainian delegation. The Ukrainian delegation was not told anything about this Trump announcement.
Slightly before, just shortly before Trump made the announcement, they were told, and they were with European allies there as well. And they couldn't believe any of it. Here's how it's being reported by the Kyiv Independent. When US envoys Witkoff and Kushner told Ukraine's delegation on October 9th that Trump was preparing to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports, the Ukrainians struggled to believe what they were hearing. It was not just our delegation there, but a European one as well, said one senior Euro— Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent.
One senior Ukrainian official told them, it's just that everyone was sitting there looking like fools. And then the senior Ukrainian official said in a very kind of dark humor, I hope the Americans don't give the Patriots to protect the refineries in Russia. Exclusive, how it felt like a trap, how Ukraine was blindsided by Trump's Putin pivot. I wouldn't call it even a pivot. I mean, this is who he has all the time.
This is who Donald Trump has always been. And the New York Times is also reporting that the Trump regime is offering a lot to Russia as well. In addition to this diesel deal, 3 major economic incentives to Russia while Russia's given no concessions to the United States, releasing billions of dollars in frozen Russian sovereign assets, potentially reviving an earlier plan involving up to $100 billion Selling portions of Russia's oil giant Lukoil to Middle Eastern investors and some of Trump's MAGA billionaire buddies, uh, with business connections with Kushner and Witkoff. Allowing Belarus, an ally of Russia, to resume potash exports, sending huge amounts of money to Belarus as well. Um, and Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation are like, huh?
Let's talk about what's happening here in the United States. Bipartisan pushback already forming against the Trump-Russian deal. Republican Congressmember Fitzpatrick announced legislation, a discharge petition, to block all Russian oil purchases. The Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act will be forced to the House floor via a discharge petition, Fitzpatrick says, and it will pass overwhelmingly. The bill directly targets Trump's October 9th deal with Putin for 300,000 tons of Russian diesel.
And as I noted before, 300,000 tons is like 2.2 million barrels. That's like what goes on one VLCC tanker. It's not like totally nothing, but it's not a significant amount of diesel that moves the needle in terms of the overall world diesel market, if you combined all of the purported diesel that's been, uh, Donald Trump claims Russia's going to export, the US is going to import. Let's just say it's all like the, what do they call, 4.6, what do they say, 4.6 million tons, whatever the metric was. It's basically the equivalent of half of a day of world diesel consumption.
And by the way, lots of people are pointing out Because Zelensky so successfully struck a lot of Russian diesel facilities, 51% have been knocked offline, that Russia doesn't even have surplus diesel capacity to fulfill this order. And so you'd be saying, well, why are they doing it if it's such a little amount and Russia really can't fulfill it? Why? Because it is a propaganda PR win for Putin. But deeper than the propaganda PR win, then Donald Trump tells Zelensky, which we saw all day yesterday, Russian refineries, Zelensky, it's under Trump protection.
It's mafia tactics. We protected because we have a deal with the refineries now. So Zelensky, if you strike those refineries when we have the deal for the Russian diesel and you strike those refineries, Zelensky, we blame you. And then we use your strikes on the refineries. As a pretext to withhold any remaining intelligence or any remaining aspect of US cooperation with Ukraine.
And so that's what this is about. It's a way to kind of further blackmail and put a gun to Zelensky's head. I would say— actually, I would say quite literally to do that. There's also this data I want to point out as well, and I gave a legal analysis of this. So in 2022, there was a law passed, Public Law 117-109, in the 117th Congress in 2022, called the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act.
The Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act of 2022 prohibits the import of diesel into the United States unless the president submits to Congress A certification that Russia has agreed to withdraw from Ukraine, recognized Ukraine sovereignty, and poses no threat to NATO. So you need to submit a written certification— Donald Trump would— to Congress in order to import Russian diesel. Clearly that law has been violated, but it goes beyond that. There is another law that Trump enacted in 2017. Called CAATSA, C-A-A-T-S-A, which stands for Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
It expanded sanctions on Iran, Title I, Russia, Title II, North Korea, Title III. And the key points that are Russia-related is that it added Section 216, created a congressional review process. Before the president can terminate, waive, or take a licensing action that, quote, significantly alters the United States foreign policy with regard to the Russian Federation, the administration must submit a report to Congress. This starts a 30-calendar-day review period. During the window, Congress can pass a joint resolution of disapproval to block the action, And the proposed change generally cannot take effect until the review period ends.
So you have 2 laws that the Trump regime violated. One, the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act of 2022. 2, CAATSA, Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, passed under the Trump regime. Of course, then you also have the Lindsey Graham Sanctions Act, although that's forward-looking, that provides serious secondary sanctions against countries that basically import Russian diesel. So basically what we'd be sanctioning ourselves.
So, you know, there's that aspect of it also. So it clearly goes against the intent of the Lindsey Graham Act. And then of course, we, you know, as I said before, there's all this reporting about how Russia's providing Iran with all of the intelligence and weapons that Iran is using against the tankers and that they can use against the US and that they've used before. And so I wanted to give you that analysis. So basically, what does this mean?
So when the Russian oil— so the Supreme Court gave Donald Trump absolute immunity, so, which is ridiculous, but Donald Trump can try to cite his absolute immunity, but Treasury Secretary Bessent He don't have absolute immunity. He could be criminally prosecuted for this now, in my opinion, because he issued a general license that withdrew these— a temporary license that withdrew the sanctions against Putin for oil for a 6-month period. And that's a violation of the law. It's a criminal act by Bessent right there. Um, I also want to point out that the license that was given to Putin is for a 6-month period that ends on April 7th, and it basically aligns with the 6 months of Putin's birthday.
It's why lots of people in Ukraine were like, look, it was literally a birthday gift to Putin by Donald Trump because it was a 6-month birthday gift. Like, you can literally time it from the 7th to the 7th, basically, is, is where it was supposed to end on the 7th even though it ended up being a day or two afterwards. But that was the kind of plan behind it. But also the Customs and Border Patrol agents and anybody in CBP who brings in this Russian diesel, they could be criminally prosecuted now as well because they're violating the law. And so when the oil and the diesel arrives, it's basically going to be stuck there.
And if anybody handles it or touches it, Now they can be criminally prosecuted. And so this whole— so Donald Trump doing this and Bessent going along with it now created this additional mess. I wanted to give you that context as well. So there you have it. Hit subscribe.
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MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Zelenskyy's response as Donald Trump escalates his threats against Ukraine, calls for Zelenskyy's removal, and touts his diesel deal with Putin. Meiselas breaks down Zelenskyy's push to unite European allies and Ukraine's continued strikes on Russian refineries as Trump exposes his true intentions.
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