US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Ukraine to replace President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accusing him of repeatedly refusing to strike a deal to end the war with Russia and of worsening fuel costs in the United States.
Speaking to reporters at the White House before leaving for a midterm campaign event in Tennessee, Trump said: “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does.”
“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” he added.
“Chooses not to”
Trump said Zelenskyy had passed up numerous chances to settle the conflict. “Zelenskyy could have settled this war many times, many, many times, and he chooses not to,” he said.
Diesel complaint
The president tied Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure to diesel shortages hitting American farmers and ranchers. “He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel,” Trump said.
The remarks came a day after he announced an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel to ease fuel-price pressure.
“Incompetence”
Trump again argued the war would have been avoided on his watch. “If I had been president, that war would have never started,” he said. “There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence.”
Disputed figures
Trump also claimed Ukraine had lost 30 percent of its territory and that more than two million people had been killed or displaced. Independent assessments put Russian-held territory at about 20 percent, and there are no reliable recent figures matching his casualty estimate.
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 The comments mark a further deterioration in ties between Washington and Kyiv, as Trump pushes for negotiations to end the war, now in its fifth year, and presses Ukraine to stop attacking Russian energy targets.
