US President Donald Trump said Washington could carry out another military strike against Iran, Reuters reported. At a campaign rally in Florida on Friday, Oct. 23, he told supporters, “We may do another little Epic Fury,” referring to the operational name linked to earlier US actions against Iranian assets. The remarks came during a wider address on international security and commercial trade ahead of the Nov. 3 US midterm elections.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview published Thursday, Oct. 22, on the podcast The Diary of a CEO, said energy-market volatility comes from escalating military engagements in the Middle East, including shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. He rejected US administration claims that Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries were responsible for higher US retail diesel prices.
“I think it’s wrong and unacceptable that he pins Russia’s aggression and Russia’s killings on me,” Zelensky said, pointing to disruptions at maritime bottlenecks in the Middle East as the main source of pressure on international fuel benchmarks. He said Kyiv had repeatedly proposed a verified, reciprocal suspension of attacks on energy infrastructure, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin had refused to formalize a ceasefire. He argued that criticism of Ukraine diverted attention from inflation tied to instability in the Middle East.
At a joint press conference in Oslo on Tuesday, Oct. 20, with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Zelensky said Ukrainian defense agencies had identified evidence of Russian drone transfers and intelligence assistance to Iran.
“I think that Putin helps Iranians and helped, because we saw different details from the drones which Russia delivered to Iran,” Zelensky said. “I think also they shared with them intelligence, I mean from satellites and other information. This is what we know.”
Asked whether the Kremlin was using ties with Tehran to influence Washington’s foreign-policy calculations, Zelensky said, “I don’t know too much, yes, but I know that Russia stays on the side of Iranians.” Ukrainian security authorities had previously indicated that Russian electronic warfare units and space-based reconnaissance assets have provided signals intelligence to Iranian command centers while the United States weighs further operations in the region.