By Enyichukwu Enemanna
United States President Donald Trump, on Saturday urged Ukraine to replace Volodomyr Zelensky with a new leader, criticising the President for strikes on Russian oil refineries that have contributed to pre-election high diesel prices.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he had told Zelensky to “do what you want” against Russia, but “don’t hit refineries.”
“He better damn well stop,” Trump said, before adding that he thinks “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president” who will agree to end the war.
Speaking on Saturday as he left the White House, Trump said the Ukrainian president “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”.
Russia and Ukraine have recently intensified their strikes, targeting energy-generating and transport facilities, as well as major logistics hubs.
“We said, ‘you can do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries’, because that’s a world problem that’s caused,” he said.
“He could have made many deals and for some reason, he never does.”
The US president confirmed on Friday that an agreement had been reached with Moscow to suspend sanctions on Russian diesel exports until 7 April.
Zelensky 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.
The Ukrainian president spoke to several allies on Saturday to discuss the latest developments, calling for “real decisions to protect lives in Ukraine” and to protect European security.
His criticism of the US-Russia diesel deal was echoed by EU’s foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, saying 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.”
