Paris, Sept 4(HS): U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced sharp discontent over continued Russian oil imports by some EU states, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed Thursday after a high-level summit in Paris on Ukraine’s future security guarantees.

Trump, who joined the talks via videoconference, criticized Europe for undermining sanctions, pointing in particular to Hungary and Slovakia — the only two EU members still permitted to import Russian oil under an exemption granted in 2022. The U.S. was formally represented at the Paris meeting by Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who also held separate talks with Zelensky.

“The president is very dissatisfied that Russian oil continues to be purchased in Europe,” Zelensky told reporters following the summit.

Since the start of the war, Ukraine has repeatedly struck the Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline — Moscow’s vital crude conduit to Central Europe — in a bid to choke Russian revenues. Hungary and Slovakia have protested these attacks, urging the European Commission to intervene against what they call “repeated assaults” on critical energy infrastructure.

The debate comes at a delicate geopolitical moment. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, seen as one of Moscow’s closest allies in the EU, is scheduled to meet Zelensky in western Ukraine on Friday after holding talks earlier this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin in China. Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has admitted privately raising the pipeline attacks with Trump.

The Paris summit, attended by Ukraine’s allies, centered on postwar security guarantees for Kyiv, now in its fourth year of resisting Russia’s full-scale invasion. For Zelensky, Europe’s energy loopholes remain not just an economic battleground, but a test of Western unity.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar