US President Donald Trump has said he thinks ‘it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president’ as he responded to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s criticism of the US diesel deal with Russia.
The Ukrainian president warned a new deal to release millions of tonnes of Russian diesel into the US would provide Moscow with money to continue its war against his nation, calling it a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump told reporters outside the White House yesterday that Zelenskiy ‘wants to make problems for the world’ by continuing to authorise attacks on Russian refineries.
“He’d better damn well stop,” Trump said, before suggesting Ukraine should “get a new leader who can make a deal”.
Global fuel supplies, including diesel, have been severely limited by the war against Iran launched by the US and Israel, which led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil products usually flows.
Russia – a major producer – and Ukraine have recently intensified their strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure and transport facilities, further straining energy markets.
“We said, ‘you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries’, because that’s a world problem that’s caused,” Trump continued.
“He could have made many deals and for some reason, he never does.”
Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev described Trump’s intervention as ‘iconic and historic’, saying that Ukraine ‘needs leadership actually focused on peace’.
The US president confirmed on Friday that an agreement had been reached with Moscow to suspend sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April 7.
Zelenskiy reacted by saying it would allow Moscow to raise new funds to source new military equipment to continue the war.
He also accused Moscow of taking the deal ‘to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they keep dropping bombs on cities’ following deadly new strikes on Zaporizhzhia.
Seventeen people, including three children, were killed in a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian city yesterday.
A six-year-old girl was among those killed when one strike reduced part of an apartment block to rubble. Her grandfather, Anatoliy Chumniy, stood sobbing over her body, laid on the ground in a white bag, after rescuers pulled it from the wreckage.
“Her birthday would have been at the end of the month,” he said through tears.
Eighteen others were wounded in the attack on the industrial city, whose outskirts lie less than 30km from the front line.
“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, in some of his sharpest criticism yet of the White House.
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, east of Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president spoke to several allies yesterday to discuss the latest developments, calling for ‘real decisions to protect lives in Ukraine’ and to protect European security.
A Downing Street spokesperson said UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham had spoken to Zelenskiy and offered his ‘complete solidarity’.
The pair had agreed Russia should acquiesce to ‘an immediate energy ceasefire’ and end its attacks on shipping in the Black Sea, the spokesperson said, as ‘this would immediately release more energy and food supplies into the global market’.
News of the US-Russia diesel deal was also met with criticism by EU’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, who echoed Zelenskiy in saying that suspending sanctions ‘provides Moscow with more revenues to wage war’, adding: “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t.”
She said European foreign ministers intended to approve the biggest set of sanctions on Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion tomorrow.
&uuid=(email))