Arab News | Trump calls for replacing Ukraine’s Zelenskiy in tussle over diesel deal with Russia

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Saturday called for Ukraine to replace its leader ​Volodymyr Zelenskiy and railed against Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, a day after announcing a diesel supply deal with Russia that drew a sharp rebuke from Zelenskiy.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals, but for some reason he never does,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

Zelenskiy, in some of his sharpest criticism yet of the White House, blasted Trump’s deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to lift sanctions on Russian diesel, which comes as soaring energy prices have become a political liability for Trump’s Republican Party ‌ahead of next ‌month’s midterm elections. The Russian government said on Saturday it had partially lifted ​a ‌ban ⁠on diesel ​exports ⁠with immediate effect.

“Today, Russia said thank you for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskiy said after a Russian strike on that city on Saturday killed 20 people, including three children.

The southern city of Zaporizhzhia has been a regular target of Russian bombardment with strikes intensifying in the past few months.

TRUMP SAYS STRIKES ON RUSSIAN ENERGY ‘BETTER DAMN WELL STOP’

Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports, which were imposed about a year ago with the intent of depriving Russia of funding for its ⁠war in Ukraine, coincides with persistently high fuel prices that have followed from ‌US conflict with Iran.

Kyiv had instead urged Washington to increase pressure ‌on Moscow in an effort to force it into serious negotiations to ​end the 4-1/2-year war.

Trump has criticised Ukrainian strikes on ‌Russian oil refineries, which he says have driven up global prices, while Kyiv has said it wants ‌a total halt on all energy strikes by both sides as Moscow pummels Ukraine’s power grid.

“I said to him, ‘Do what you want. Don’t hit refineries. There’s plenty of targets. Don’t hit refineries.’ And he went out and he hit,” Trump said of Zelenskiy as he departed for a political rally.

“He better damn well stop,” Trump added.

On Saturday, a 6-year-old girl ‌was among those killed in Zaporizhzhia when one strike reduced part of an apartment block to rubble.

It was the third mass-casualty attack on Ukraine this week.

Nearly ⁠80 civilians were killed ⁠in Russian strikes on Wednesday and Thursday, including at least 30 killed by a bomb in the eastern garrison city of Kramatorsk and 22 others by a missile in the town of Pryluky, about 130 km (80 miles) east of Kyiv.

The latest strikes followed talks between Ukrainian and European officials with US negotiators in Miami on Friday, which were aimed at developing a common proposal for ending the war, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Trump announced the diesel deal while the negotiations were under way, a move Zelenskiy said had caught Kyiv by surprise.

The Ukrainian delegation was headed home on Saturday, presidential aide Dmytro Lytvyn was cited by the Interfax Ukraine news agency as saying.

Putin said after a call with Trump on Friday that an immediate resumption of peace talks was unlikely, citing Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow.

US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared ​Kushner may visit Moscow within the next two weeks, ​Russian state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing a source.