Trump declared it time for Ukraine to replace Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader criticized a U.S.-Russia diesel deal meant to ease fuel prices.
President Donald Trump told reporters outside the White House on Saturday that Ukraine should choose new leadership and stop hitting Russian oil refineries. He spoke on the South Lawn before flying to a midterm rally in Clarksville, Tenn.
Fox News reported the comments followed Zelenskyy’s criticism of a U.S. agreement with Moscow on diesel exports that Trump had confirmed the day before. Trump cast the arrangement as a practical step to put more fuel into American and global markets while energy costs rise.
Trump did not soften the message. He said Kyiv’s president has passed up chances to end the fighting and that the refinery strikes are making a worldwide fuel problem worse.
"It's time for Ukraine to get a new president"
Trump tied the leadership call to a simple demand: end the attacks on Russian refineries. He said Washington had already drawn a clear line with Kyiv on that point.
"We said, 'You can do whatever you want to Russia. Don't hit the refineries' because that's a world problem that's caused"
He added a blunt warning about the strikes continuing.
"He'd better d--- well stop"
On Friday, Trump confirmed that Washington had reached an agreement with Moscow to suspend restrictions on Russian diesel exports until April 7. The move was described as a temporary easing that could release millions of tons of diesel into U.S. and world markets.
Trump has been looking for ways to bring down fuel prices as energy costs climb, including pressure tied to conflict with Iran. He framed the diesel step as relief for consumers and markets, not a favor to Moscow.
Zelenskyy criticized the arrangement. He warned it could give Russia more money to buy weapons and keep fighting Ukraine. Trump rejected that framing and turned the dispute into a test of whether Ukraine’s current leadership will ever close a deal to end the war.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Both sides have stepped up strikes on energy sites, transportation systems, and other key infrastructure as the war has ground on.
Trump argued the Ukrainian president has had chances to settle the conflict and has not taken them. He put the failure in plain terms while speaking to reporters.
"He could have made many deals and, for some reason, he never does"
Just The News reported Trump went further on the same theme, saying Ukraine should elect a leader who can finish a peace agreement. He said the war should never have started, blamed prior incompetence for letting it begin, and claimed Ukraine has lost 30% of its territory with more than 2 million people killed. He also said the fighting would not have started if he had been president at the time.
In that account, Trump again urged a leadership change built around one goal: a negotiator who will make a deal and stop the bloodletting.
Trump’s Saturday remarks put the refinery campaign at the center of the dispute. He called those hits a “world problem” because damaged refining capacity tightens diesel supply far beyond the battlefield. American drivers and businesses feel that pressure at the pump and in shipping costs.
Images circulated with the coverage showed flames and smoke at a Moscow oil refinery in southeast Moscow after a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack. Trump treated continued strikes of that kind as a choice Kyiv can reverse, and as a reason the current leadership is the wrong partner for ending the war.
The diesel agreement’s stated end date is April 7. The full text of the pact and the precise sanctions language were not laid out in the public remarks. What Trump made clear was the trade he wants: more diesel on the market, fewer hits on refineries, and a Ukrainian government willing to negotiate an end to the fighting.
Zelenskyy’s warning about Russian weapons funding sits on the other side of that ledger. Trump’s answer was not to scrap the fuel relief. It was to say Ukraine needs a president who will stop the refinery attacks and finally cut a deal.
From the South Lawn to the Tennessee rally trail, the message was consistent. Endless war and squeezed energy markets are a bad bargain for the United States. Leaders who will not negotiate leave everyone else paying.
Cheaper fuel and a finished war require presidents who close deals, not leaders who keep the fighting and the pump prices running.
