President Donald Trump on Saturday called for new leadership in Ukraine, marking a dramatic shift in the United States’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump has long pushed Russia and Ukraine to make a deal ending the war between the countries, which has now stretched over four-and-a-half years and appeared to lead to at least two million military casualties.
Over the weekend, he complained to reporters outside the White House about what he described as Zelensky’s inability or reluctance to agree to a peace agreement. Trump suggested Ukraine “get a new leader who can make a deal,” signaling a notable downturn in Zelensky’s relationship with Washington, which has long provided vital support for his war against Russia.
“He could have made many deals, and for some reason, he never does,” Trump said. “Zelensky could have settled this war many times, many many times, and he chooses not to. Very difficult.”
The development comes as Trump and Zelensky’s relationship has long been marked by dramatic public highs and lows, from an Oval Office encounter in February 2025 that ended in a shouting match to Trump hailing the Ukrainian leader as “courageous” in June.
As he called for a leadership change in Kyiv this week, Trump also lashed out at Zelensky for attacking Russian oil refineries. The president’s rebuke comes shortly after the U.S. reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on purchasing the country’s diesel fuel. Moscow agreed to supply diesel to global markets to lower fuel prices, in exchange for Trump lifting U.S. sanctions on Russian fuel, which had been put in place to target Russia’s ability to target Ukraine. The U.S. has warned Ukraine that continued attacks on Russian oil refineries could jeopardize intelligence-sharing between Washington and Kyiv, according to a Financial Times report published Saturday.
“He better damn well stop,” Trump said of Zelensky’s authorization of attacks on Russian refineries.
Ukraine said earlier this month that recent strikes on refineries in cities, including Moscow, Yaroslavl, Ust-Luga, Perm, Saratov, and Syzran, had disabled 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity. That marked a troubling development for the U.S., where officials are counting on its new diesel agreement with Russia to help bring down fuel prices that have surged due to the Iran and Ukraine wars.
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Trump accused Zelensky of hitting Russia’s oil refineries to make “problems for the world.”
“We said you can do whatever you want to Russia, [but] don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem,” the president said Saturday. “He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world, and we told them, do whatever you want, but don’t hit the diesel fuel because there’s a big problem, a big shortage. And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel.”
