U.S. official: Trump cut deal with Putin after Zelensky ignored his requests

NEW: Trump cut his diesel deal with Putin after Zelensky ignored his requests, a US official says, as Kyiv calls the agreement 'not fair and not honest'.

Trump went to Putin because Zelensky wouldn't pick up the phone. That's the claim.

A US official tells Axios the president cut his diesel deal with Moscow only after Kyiv ignored his requests, and this is the story behind the handshake everyone's been arguing about. The official's framing is blunt, Washington asked, Ukraine stonewalled, so the White House went around them.

Kyiv sees it very differently. Their line on the agreement is that it's not fair and not honest, which is about as sharp as diplomatic language gets between allies. And remember, a Ukrainian drone put a Russian fuel site on fire within hours of the announcement, so the response hasn't exactly been limited to words.

Whoever ignored whom, the result is the same. Washington and Moscow have a deal, and Ukraine wasn't in the room when it was made.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.