Trump Urges Ukraine to Get a New President, Blames Zelenskyy for U.S. Diesel Prices
United States President Donald Trump said on Saturday (October 10, 2026) that it was time for Ukraine to have a new president, suggesting that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had not done enough to end his country's war with Russia and linking him to high diesel prices in the United States.
"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," Mr. Trump said, speaking before departing for Tennessee to rally Republican voters ahead of next month's midterm elections.
The remarks came a day after Mr. Trump announced a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy diesel from Russia, a step he presented as a way to address fuel prices. He has for weeks urged Mr. Zelenskyy to halt Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, and he has sought to attribute record U.S. diesel prices to Ukraine rather than to the conflict with Iran, which has pushed up energy prices worldwide.
"He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel," Mr. Trump said of Mr. Zelenskyy.
An Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research poll conducted last month and published on October 1 found that Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump's handling of Iran and hold him responsible for higher prices.
The U.S. President also said that had he been in office in 2022, "that war would have never started. There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence."
He said Mr. Zelenskyy had "lost 30% of your country," adding that "over 2 million people" had been killed. Independent estimates put the share of Ukrainian territory under Russian control at about 20%. British defence officials have recently estimated that about half a million Russian soldiers have been killed; there are no reliable recent public estimates of Ukrainian military deaths.
Under Ukraine's constitution, a presidential election was due in 2024, but it has been postponed because martial law prohibits holding elections during wartime.
Mr. Trump's intervention followed Russian strikes that killed at least 20 people in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday. Ukraine's State Emergency Service said three children were among those killed when Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings, and that at least 18 people were wounded.
Russia and Ukraine remain locked in a long-range aerial war, with their armies largely deadlocked along the front line, more than four and a half years after Moscow's full-scale invasion. Ukrainian officials say the country is struggling to counter escalating Russian bombardments that have killed more than 60 people over the past four days.
"Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia," Mr. Zelenskyy wrote on X on Saturday. He said the attacks showed that Moscow reads "any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities."
"Russia's choice is war," Mr. Zelenskyy said in a later post on Telegram, after drone attacks on energy facilities and a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv.
He said every additional billion dollars Russia earns from exports helps fund weapons components, drone upgrades, missile production and the recruitment of mercenaries, and that Moscow would be ready to stop only when its capacity to fight was diminished.
Mr. Zelenskyy said the diesel deal had sent Moscow "signals that it is apparently permissible to continue attacking. And this needs to be corrected," and he urged the United States, Europe and other partners to limit Russia's ability to wage war.
He added that Ukraine was coordinating steps to offset the additional revenue Russia will receive, and that he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron about strengthening air defences, warning of a heightened risk of further missile strikes in the coming days.
