Branson vs Trump: Virgin Billionaire Accuses President of Cosying Up to Putin as Zelensky Feud Explodes

Photo: Sir Richard Branson — public domain photograph by NASA photographer Kim Shiflett, Wikimedia Commons. (Archive photo.)

A British billionaire has walked straight into the ugliest diplomatic row of the year. Sir Richard Branson accused Donald Trump of cosying up to Vladimir Putin as the president's feud with Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned genuinely poisonous this week — and his choice of words was not gentle.

"How will America's allies ever be able to trust this administration again when they are now turning against them at a time of war and suffering?" Branson asked, in comments carried by Hindustan Times on Friday. He pointed at two things in particular: the US deal to import Russian diesel, signed days after Trump's October 9 phone call with Putin, and the temporary suspension of Starshield, the military satellite internet service Ukrainian forces rely on.

For a man who normally spends his political capital on space and climate, this is a full-throated intervention. Branson also urged European leaders to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine and supply advanced weapons — including Germany's Taurus missiles. He's not just commenting. He's picking a side.

"More difficult than Putin"

Branson's attack landed the morning after Trump gave a Newsmax interview that left even his critics blinking. The president called Zelenskyy "not a good guy for us to deal with," blamed Ukraine's renewed strikes on Russian refineries for pushing up global oil prices, and then said the quiet part out loud: "I think I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin."

Trump's position, to be fair, is that he wants the killing to stop and believes Zelenskyy keeps moving the goalposts. "He doesn't wanna settle. He says he wants to settle, but he doesn't," the president said, adding that any deal won't happen with Zelenskyy in charge. In his telling, Kyiv's refinery campaign — which Ukraine restarted after Russia kept bombing its energy grid — is a "disgrace" making fuel dearer for everyone.

Kyiv sees it rather differently. Zelenskyy accused Trump of siding with Moscow after more than four years of invasion, and told reporters he feels personally betrayed. Asked in Brussels on Friday whether Trump was scapegoating him to deflect from his own troubles — the midterms are weeks away, and diesel prices have soared at home — the Ukrainian president just smiled. "This is my answer," he said, as the press room laughed. "Yesterday was a thousand drones in Ukraine, a thousand," he added, "but the American side said that it is difficult to speak with Zelenskyy, it's less difficult to manage with Putin."

The Starshield mess in the middle

The immediate trigger for all of this was Thursday's Starshield disruption. Restrictions on fast-moving terminals — reportedly capped at 160 km/h — broke drone communications, caused missions to fail, and hampered interceptor drones. Ukrainian officials fumed. The service has since been restored.

Who ordered it? Still murky. Elon Musk said on X that limits on Starshield are "decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS." A senior US official countered that Trump hadn't requested it. The White House ordered the temporary suspension, full stop — which is quite enough detail to explain Kyiv's fury. Britain's Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who was at the Pentagon with Pete Hegseth on Thursday, told the BBC it was "not yet clear to us in the UK what happened, why the service interruption occurred."

There is real substance underneath the shouting. CNN reported that Ukraine has run out of the crucial US-made Patriot air defence systems it needs to fend off Russian attacks — on the same week Russian strikes hit energy infrastructure across Ukraine and the EU summit in Brussels wrestled with winter preparedness.

Why this matters from London

Strip away the personalities and Branson is asking a serious question: what is a security guarantee worth when the guarantor calls the victim harder to deal with than the invader? Trump clearly believes pressure on Kyiv is the shortcut to peace. Branson — and, judging by the Brussels summit, most of Europe — believes it's an invitation to Moscow.

One British billionaire won't move the White House. But allies are supposed to argue in private and back each other in public.

Sources:

• Hindustan Times — "Billionaire Richard Branson accuses Trump of cozying up to Russia's Putin amid Zelenskyy feud" (Oct 16, 2026)
• Business Standard — "US says Trump didn't order curbs on Ukraine's access to SpaceX's Starshield" (Oct 16, 2026)
• Economic Times — "Asked if Trump is scapegoating him, Zelenskyy just smiles" (Oct 16, 2026)
• Open Magazine/HuffPost — Trump calls Zelenskyy "not a good guy to deal with," more difficult than Putin (Oct 16, 2026)