Tangle - The U.S.–Ukraine policy shift.

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

On Wednesday, October 14, Ukrainian officials reported that its access to the services it uses to coordinate drone missions was hampered, signaling a potential shift in U.S. policy toward the country amid its war with Russia. The disruption came on the heels of a deal to buy Russian diesel, an executive order lifting sanctions passed by Congress in September, and comments from President Donald Trump accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not wanting to end the war. The debut.Yesterday, Executive Editor Isaac Saul announced A Grain of Saul, a new iteration of an old favorite column where he’ll share fresh perspectives on politics and culture. Today, he publishes his first piece, exploring a frequently discussed — albeit sensitive — question: Are Americans just stupid? Check it out here.They’re trying to scare you.As the midterms near, campaigns are leaning into a familiar tactic: fear. You’ve probably seen or heard all manner of political advertisements warning of catastrophic consequences if an opponent or their party wins power. In the latest video for his new YouTube channel, Isaac breaks down the psychology of these ads and how to tell when politicians are playing on fear-based emotions. Check it out here.Ad-free podcasts are here!Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Take the survey: How will these recent developments impact the war? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Will Kaback and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm your host today, senior editor Will Keeback, welcoming you to the midweek. The next two weeks are going to be exceedingly U.S. centrist. here at Tangle, and I imagine across the country as Election Day nears, but an equally important story is playing out in Ukraine. Now, the war's dynamics are changing rapidly. Alliances are being tested, and this is all happening while the prospects of a peace deal remain murky at best. So today we've got everything you need to know on some of the latest developments that have happened since just this past weekend.

And then we're also going to look back at how our coverage of the war, from one year ago has aged in light of the developments of the past 12 months. Before we get into that, though, excited to share that we are launching something new. You may have seen in your inbox yesterday that executive editor Isaac Saul announced the launch of Grain of Saul, which is a new column where he's going to share some fresh perspectives on politics and culture, break out a little bit of the typical Tangle format and share some more raw, maybe unfiltered takes on the big topics of the day. And today he is out with his first piece under the new banner. The piece explores a frequently discussed, albeit kind of sensitive question,

and that is, are Americans just stupid? I'm not going to say anymore. I'll just encourage you to head on over to readtangle.com to check it out. It's free for all readers, regardless of your subscription level. All right, now I'm going to hand you. hand it over to Audrey to get us started on today's topic, and I'll be back in a bit to read my take. Thanks, Will. First up, we have today's quick hits. Number one, Republican candidate Vivek Romooswamy's campaign for Ohio governor released an advertisement featuring the mother of his opponent, the Democrat Amy Acton, claiming her daughter is a liar and urging voters not to elect her. Acton's campaign released a statement from her brother, highlighting the siblings' estrangement from their mother and her

relationship with their stepfather, who was charged with sexually assaulting Acton when she was 12. Number two. President Donald Trump announced an anti-fraud initiative that will give payouts to whistleblowers who alert the government to fraudulent activity. YouTuber Nick Shirley, who published videos on alleged fraud in Minnesota and California, will reportedly receive $10,000 through the program. Number three.

The United Kingdom will send fighter jets to support Saudi Arabia's defenses as it faces ongoing attacks by Houthi militants. Number four. The National Association of Realtors reported that the pending home sales index dropped to a record low in September amid rising mortgage rates. Number five. Italy said it will deploy 500 troops to Milan in response to protests and riots in the city over the weekend. The temporarily caused starling access for the Ukrainian military. Well, I don't know if it was anybody because it wasn't me.

And I don't think it was Elon. and from what I understand, it's the same as it's always been. It's not clear how Musk's order to curtail service was executed. Zelensky said service had not been restored early Tuesday, though a White House official disputed that claim. On Wednesday, October 14th, Ukrainian officials reported that its access to the services it uses to coordinate drone missions was hampered, signaling a potential shift in U.S. policy toward the country amid its war with Russia.

The disruption came on the heels of a deal to buy Russian, Diesel, an executive order lifting sanctions passed by Congress in September, and comments from President Donald Trump accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of not wanting to end the war. Ukraine uses SpaceX Star Shield, an upgraded military version of its Starlink satellite internet service, to power both its offensive and defensive drone operations. Although Ukraine reported its connectivity was restored on Thursday, President Zelensky said that the speed of its connection was still degraded over the weekend. He said, quote, we lose both drones and connectivity. end quote.

Both President Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk deny involvement in Ukraine's disconnection. Musk wrote on X, quote, Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the U.S. military and ultimately the president, end quote. Meanwhile, Trump stated, quote, I don't know if it was anybody because it wasn't me and I don't think it was Elon, adding that, quote, from what I understand, it's the same as it's always been, end quote. Reporting since then has cited anonymous sources who contradict those statements. On Thursday, citing two U.S. officials and one Western official,

Reuters reported that the order to throttle Ukraine's Star Shield Service came from the White House. Then on Friday, the telegraph reported that Musk approached Trump about shutting off the service and that the Trump administration had warned Ukraine that it could do so if the country didn't stop its campaign of bombing Russian oil infrastructure. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Musk ordered to slowdown. On Monday, President Trump appeared to absolve Russia of blame for its recent strikes. Trump said, quote, Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine, and they haven't been doing much, end quote. Later on Monday, Zelensky said that Russia hit Ukraine with missile and drone strikes overnight, with, quote, no warning from our partners, end quote.

Secretary of State Margo Rubio stressed that the U.S. was not seeking to deliberately harm Ukraine, further denying that the White House restricted its Star Shield access. Rubio took a 45-minute call with Zelensky on Tuesday ahead of a round of peace talks with White House envoy Steve Whitkoff aimed at presenting Putin, with a peace deal. Rubio said, quote, no doubt their attentions. That is why we had the call, end quote. Next up, you'll hear the views from the right and left about the latest with Ukraine in the United States. Then, back to senior editor Will Kayback for his take. We'll be right back after this quick break. First, what the right is saying. The right is mixed with some criticizing the Trump administration for the Star Shield slowdown. Some say a U.S. summit with Russia and China would so division among the GOP. Other support,

Trump's response to Zelensky's actions. In National Review, Dan McLaughlin argued there are no good answers for Ukraine's cut-off defense shield. The latest fiasco from the Trump administration involves the apparently deliberate outage of the Star Shield system that assists the defense of Ukraine from Russia's war. This is, rightly, a major national security scandal. Whatever this is, it's neither responsible behavior nor good domestic politics, which is why nobody is claiming responsibility. There has been surprisingly little effort put into denying that this happened or constructing any counter-narrative. If the decision came from the Trump White House, either at the direction of the president or of his political operatives, it is likelyest that it was done for reasons of politics, statecraft,

or some murky and self-convinced combination of the two. In any event, simple stonewalling seems unlikely to work. A bipartisan group of nine senators have called for an investigation. Pretending that this is going away will not be an option. The New York Post editorial board said a summit with Russia and China would blow up the Republican Party. If President Donald Trump wants a full-on riot within the Republican Party, going along with Vladimir Putin's idea for a Yalta two summit with Xi Jinping is the way to do it. The 1945 Yalta conference between the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union was a meeting of allies. This new one would be Trump volunteering to be outnumbered by our determined foes. Yet the biggest problems start long before any sit-down.

However much Trump thinks he can work with Xi, however charmed he is by Putin, doesn't. doesn't matter. Simply announcing he means to do this would instantly prompt all-out rebellion by much of the GOP, further sinking the party's chances in the midterms. For all Trump's desire to end the carnage in Ukraine, this won't do it. Putin's looking to win via diplomacy what he can't on the battlefield, and would be happy to see it destroy Trump's presidency as an added bonus. In PJ Media, Scott Pinsker suggested Zelensky doesn't have the cards. According to Vladimir Zelensky, President Donald Trump has joined Russia's side, and now our partnership is over. Foreign policy disputes are seldom singular. This one is no exception. There's the sky-high

casualty count on both sides, the risk of escalation, and Russia's nuclear arsenal. But the recent finger-pointing has to do with President Trump wanting to purchase Russian diesel fuel, and Ukraine targeting Russian refineries with American weapons, intelligence, and military assistance. It's obvious why Ukraine is attacking Russian refineries. Kill the Russian economy, and you kill the Russian war machine. It's equally obvious why President Trump vehemently opposes the idea. American workers and American farmers need diesel. Zolensky isn't an angel and he isn't a demon. He's a Ukrainian nationalist. He has his national interests, and so do we. He wants America's interests to align with Ukraine's and not the other way around. It's the exact wrong strategy at the exact

wrong time. Now what the left is saying. The left says Trump's actions show clear favor for Russia. Some suggest a summit with Putin would yield bad results for Ukraine and Trump. Others are argue that Ukraine should have control over its future. In the New Yorker, Susan B. Glasser called Trump's recent actions a pivot to Putin. Trump finally decided to begin openly helping Vladimir Putin in Russia's war of conquest against Ukraine. The latest twist in Trump's years-long flirtation with outright support of the Russian war effort began last Friday, after the president held a lengthy call with Putin and announced that he was waiving energy sanctions on Russia to purchase hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel in an attempt to bring down surging prices. He began to

Again, a drumbeat of accusations against Zelensky, blaming him and not Russia for the ongoing war, demanding that Ukraine stop attacking Russian energy facilities, and even calling for the Ukrainian president's ouster. After U.S. supplied Starlink satellite service temporarily went down in advance of another large-scale Russian attack, Zelensky spoke publicly of the rift as all but a permanent break. Demanding that Ukraine fire Zelensky is hardly the rallying cry

that Americans are looking for in this season of our own discontent. In Slate, Fred Kaplan argued the summit won't go well for Trump or for Ukraine. Zelensky recently admitted that if Trump proceeds on this course, if the United States officially allies with Russia in this war, Ukraine cannot possibly win. And all this, Putin's proposal for a summit, Trump's waiver of anti-Russia sanctions, and the severe limiting of Elon Musk's satellite feeds to Ukraine,

comes at a time when Ukraine had been making some headway in the war and Russia had been suffering enormous setbacks. The question at the moment is this, Will Trump actually agree to attend this summit? The lambasting that Trump has received for his diesel-fueled deal and his waiver of Russian sanctions, not only from almost all Democrats but from many Republicans, may have surprised him, and given him a taste of the outrage he'd inside by taking another step toward full appeasement of Putin. We can hope, but as the saying goes, hope is not a strategy.

Nor can it offer any insight into how Trump might weigh his desperation for recognition as a powerful leader against the consequences of abandoning Ukraine. The Guardian editorial board criticized diplomacy of the strong for the strong. Does Vladimir Putin know exactly how to play Donald Trump? The history of Chummy phone calls, high-profile meetings, and attempts to bring Russia in from the cold, certainly suggests that Moscow's thuggish ruler has a hold on this American president. If Mr. Trump agrees to negotiate Ukraine's future with Mr. Putin and China's Xi Jinping without Ukraine at the table, He will have handed the Russian leader a victory before talks begin.

Ukraine has the right to determine its future. That right cannot be waived away by a self-serving Russian proposal, however much it indulges Mr. Trump's belief that world affairs should be settled by powerful men. Trumpian America is raising doubts about whether it will help deter aggression or even honor its native commitments. If Washington now rewards Moscow and pressures Ukraine to accept a raw deal, it would be a betrayal. That's it for views from the right and the left. Now back to Will for his take. Thanks, Audrey.

All right, here's my take. Between President Trump's decision to waive sanctions on Russia, his openness to a trilateral meeting with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi, and the suspicious disruption of Star Shield services in Ukraine. The White House is doing everything except saying out loud that it's turning on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. and the Ukrainian people. Now, I think this is bad. Full stop.

I consider Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not just an attack on a geopolitical ally, but a moral affront, and I think that abandoning Ukraine would be a strategic blunder to boot. I see virtually nothing to gain from cozying up to Russia under the pretense that Putin will be more amenable to peace negotiations

if he's given sanctions relief. And outside of the White House, these moves have little support. Writers on both sides of the political spectrum, including many who typically back the administration, were nearly uniform in their opposition to the past week's developments. The Trump-friendly New York Post editorial board went so far as to invoke Neville Chamberlain

regarding Trump's openness to meeting with Putin and G. And the closest thing that we could find to a defense of Trump's turnaway from Ukraine was from Scott Pinsker at PJ Media, who you heard under what the right is saying. Pinsker argued that Zelensky is motivated by ego and power, and while he didn't explicitly defend Russia, he essentially shrugged at Ukraine's fate, and he said that Trump has no obligation to care about them either.

If it were true that Ukraine was some tiny, irrelevant state whose fate means nothing to the U.S., I could understand Pinsker's sentiment, even if I still disagreed with it. But the thing is, is that it isn't true. The United States has much at stake in the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Start with the geopolitical implications. A Ukrainian surrender after the U.S. pulls its support would signal an unwillingness to assist in future conflicts involving other allies, like, say, Taiwan.

It would also call America's broader credibility into question. If you're a U.S. partner in the Middle East and you see Trump abandon Ukraine just after starting a destabilizing war in your, region, the incentive to maintain ties with the U.S. over Russia or China becomes much weaker. Relatedly, what message would it send to NATO allies? Could Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states trust that the U.S. would come to their defense against further Russian aggression? Now, maybe you're a principled isolationist, and these possibilities don't concern you. But even in terms of pure, selfish national interest, the U.S. still has much to gain from continuing to back Ukraine. The country's pioneering development of drone technology makes it a powerful ally for all current

and future conflicts. As the writer Noah Smith said in May, quote, Ukraine's intensive use of drones has allowed them to inflict casualty rates as high as five to one on the Russian army in recent months, while giving up little to no territory. In just the past year, Ukraine went from using just a few thousand first-person view drones per day, to using around 60,000, end quote. In June, defense experts at the Council on Foreign Relations credited Ukraine's drone strategy with reversing Russian territorial gains and, quote, making it easier for Ukraine to sustainably defend itself, end quote. To put the value of Ukraine's military expertise in more concrete and present terms, the U.S.

is currently fighting a war with Iran, which is mimicking Russia's drone strategy of high-volume deployments designed to overwhelm air defenses, and it's doing it successfully. It's targeting U.S. personnel and assets with some success. So maintaining an alliance with Ukraine, a nation on the cutting edge of drone operations, provides both insights and direct material support to the U.S. military in the Middle East. Ukraine's expertise could prove exponentially more valuable to us in the long run than abandoning them now to save some money or try to broker a lopsided peace deal. Deep down, I think President Trump must understand the value that Ukraine offers. Remember, just a few months ago, the country signed a statement of intent for a new defense partnership

focused on drone development, including exporting Ukrainian combat drones to the United States for military testing. What's more, our continued support costs relatively little these days. As Representative Dan Crenshaw, the Republican of Texas, noted this week in the Washington Post, Quote, Ukrainians have created the most efficient and lethal homegrown military industrial base in the world, one that can innovate and manufacture at the speed of the battlefield. The major backing that Ukraine needs from the U.S. is intelligence

and assistance with ballistic missile defense, end quote. And while Trump bemoans the amount of military aid that the U.S. has sent Ukraine to date, Congress hasn't actually approved new spending on Ukraine since April of 2024. Trump also neglects to mention the benefits from those past appropriations, as Ukrainian contracts with U.S. manufacturers, support American workers, suppliers, and defense production capacity. Of course, I'm not really breaking any news here.

We've known all of this for some time. So why the sudden change from the White House? Well, I think the simplest explanation is that President Trump is trying to bring down energy prices ahead of the midterms, just as he did with last week's diesel deal. with Putin. But also like that agreement, waving sanctions on Russia is unlikely to meaningfully affect prices in the next two weeks, even if Ukraine scales back it strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. But I also think that Trump's actions are personal. Zelensky is a wartime president, and he's someone who is constantly pushing for more support

and more resources and linking the entire West's fate to Ukraine's. I don't blame him for taking this posture, but it's not the kind of diplomacy that Trump responds well to. Trump was clearly irritated by Zelensky's refusal to pause strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Of course, Russia didn't stop its own strikes either. And I suspect that part of the motivation for his recent decisions is a desire to bring Zelensky to heal as best he can. It's hard to know how much further Trump might push for a leadership change or whether he's deploying a now familiar move of ramping up pressure on an ally to pursue a larger goal. But either way, the Star Shield slowdown speaks volumes.

The blame game in this story has quickly become convoluted, but the latest reporting indicates that Elon Musk was the catalyst for the decision with tacit support from Trump. Musk reportedly did this already in the war's first year. And now he and the president are playing an unconvincing game of pretending to have no idea who could be responsible for a directive that only a handful of people on Earth could have given. Whoever is responsible, it's cause for alarm in Ukraine as the service is critical to supporting those aforementioned drone operations, and the slowdown essentially forces their drones to fly

blind once they hit a certain speed. If that slowdown continues, the consequences for Ukraine could quickly spiral. As I said before, I think the U.S. has several reasons to continue supporting Ukraine, and I'm alarmed that the Trump administration apparently cannot appreciate them. But it's too early to say outright that the U.S. has abandoned Ukraine or sided with Russia. Remember, the Trump-Selensky relationship has looked beyond saving before, only for Trump to reverse course. As recently as July of this year, he was praising Zelensky and giving his approval for Ukraine to build Patriot missiles. The president is fickle, and as difficult as that makes foreign relations, it also means that he can still reverse course. For now, I can only hope that

Trump is engaging in a kind of gamesmanship and that it doesn't go much further down this path. If he is sincere, I hope that there are influential voices in the administration who can pull him back from the brink of irreversible moves. If the president's vindictiveness and short-sighted politicking help Russia triumph in its detestable war, it will be a failure of the highest order. All right, that is it for my take. I'm going to hand it over to managing editor Ari Weitzman, who had a concurrence today, and then he will pass it back to Audrey for the rest of the edition. Ari, over to you.

Thanks, Will. I want to zero in on one specific element of the story to demonstrate why the White House's response to Ukraine's Star Shield outage is so gratuitously bad. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is often cast in the role of, I guess we could call him the adult in the room, had this to say on Saturday after Zelensky claimed their connectivity was restored, but still impaired. And I quote, Star Shield is a contract with the U.S. military. It has nothing to do with Ukraine. I know Ukraine wants access to Star Shield. They do not have Star Shield now, end quote. Rubio's current stance is to deny the White House's involvement and

stress that SpaceX's decisions are their own. But out of the gate, his stance was to cast the Zelenskyy. I'm not sure Zelensky knows what he's talking about, Rubio said on Saturday, but Ukraine does have access to Star Shield. And I'm pretty sure the Ukrainian president would know that. So why would Rubio deny this? I can only think of two options. Either he's the one who doesn't know what he's talking about, meaning the administration's most sober-minded foreign policy official is way off base, or Trump wanted to full press a denial of the story and sacrificed Rubio's credibility in that effort. I honestly don't know which options worse,

but both answers indicate a White House that's flailing in its foreign policy. We'll be right back after this quick break. So that's my concurrence to Will. Now we're going to turn to answering your questions. And this one actually comes in the form of a note to self from us, to us in September 2025, when we made a note to ask, has Russia expanded its war beyond Ukraine? Let's go back to last September, when Romania and Poland both reported Russian drones had violated their airspace. At the time, Isaac professed three opinions. One, sending U.S. jets and tanks to Ukraine

would not trigger World War III. Two, Russia would push to expand the front beyond its current borders, and three, Trump took too long to see that Putin was the aggressor. Isaac got some pushback from readers for all three of these points, but they've proven mostly correct. His third point is proving relevant again today, as President Trump is once again criticizing Ukraine for not capitulating. His first point has also proven correct so far,

as European responses to Putin haven't proven. provoked a broader global war. The one position that hasn't been as obviously correct is the second point that Russia would expand its war beyond Ukraine. As of this moment, Russia's only active warfront in Europe is within Ukraine's borders. Looking back on what exactly Isaac wrote, though, makes this much more fraught to just dismiss. Here's what Isaac said. Russia doesn't have the military might to take on all of Europe. It has struggled to make headway against just Ukraine. However, Putin can try to fracture trust among the alliance by stress testing its defenses and forcing difficult decisions about the best response to Russian aggression. And if you look at all the accidental

airspace incursions in Europe, this claim could be correct too. In March, a Russian fighter jet briefly entered Estonian airspace. In May, a Russian drone struck a residential building in Romania, injuring two people. Then more recently, in September, Germany accused Russia of an August attempt to attack Leipzig-Hale airport with drones. All in all, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis, frontline NATO states and Moldova have incurred 17 attacks in the past month with either suspected or proven Russian ties. None of these events have opened up a new front,

but they all support the theory that Russia has been probing the European Alliance over the past year. Now, I'm going to send it back to Audrey for the rest of the pod. Thanks, Ari. Finally, we have today's Have a Nice Day story. It's October, which means it's pumpkin season. Many associate pumpkins with atumnal farm outings or jack-a-lantern carving, but some take things to the next level. Earlier this month, Half Moon Bay, California hosted the World Championship Pumpkin Way Off,

drawing thousand-pound pumpkins and crowds of festive onlookers. In Stillwater, Minnesota, competitors raced and homemade Gordian boats in the Pumpkin Rigada, followed by a spectacular display of pumpkin smashing. The Associated Press has highlights from both events, and you can find them at the link in the show notes. That's it for today's podcast. If you would like to support our work, head over to reetangle.com,

where you can find a newsletter subscription, a podcast subscription, or a bundle membership that gets you a discount on both. We will be right back here tomorrow, but in the meantime, this has been editor Audrey Moorhead. On behalf of Isaac, Will, Ari, and everyone else. Have a great day and peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lull.

Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editor's Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.