WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better damn well stop” striking Russian oil refineries, then added: “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.” The remarks came a day after Washington eased sanctions on Russian diesel, and Politico described them as a sharp escalation in Trump’s criticism of Zelenskyy.
Trump spoke to reporters as he left the White House on the South Lawn, after being asked whether his diesel deal with Moscow would prolong the war. He said, “Zelenskyy could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to.”
He then turned to the refineries. Trump said his administration had told Kyiv, “You can do whatever you want to Russia. Don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem.” He said Zelenskyy “wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel around the world.” Trump went on: “And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel fuel. He better damn well stop.”
Trump pressed the point before. The Kremlin banned diesel exports earlier this year, pushing global prices higher, and Trump urged Ukraine on September 13 to stop hitting refineries, the Associated Press reported.
On Saturday Trump also said Ukraine should find “a new leader who can make a deal.” He has previously questioned Zelenskyy’s legitimacy and pushed for Ukrainian elections, but Politico said the latest remarks amounted to a more explicit call for a change in leadership.
The warning lands in the middle of a fuel-price fight with an election weeks away. Trump announced the surprise agreement on Friday after a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the White House hopes the Russian diesel deal will bring down record prices before the November 3 midterm elections, Politico reported. Trump said Russia would supply more than 300,000 tons immediately, 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons after that, and the BBC reported that the US Treasury is suspending sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April 2027.
Politico noted that global diesel supplies were already strained by the war with Iran. The Kyiv Independent added that Trump made no mention of that war or of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which it identified as the main driver of the shortage.
Zelenskyy has called the deal “a weak decision by our strong partners,” the Kyiv Independent reported. He told reporters it “only feeds Putin” and means “more money for this war,” according to Politico, which also reported that he accused Trump a day earlier of using peace negotiations as a “smokescreen.” Politico noted that the war has produced an estimated 2 million battlefield casualties. Zelenskyy’s office declined to comment on Saturday’s remarks.
Ukrainian officials say the dispute goes beyond the diesel deal. Officials who took part in the October 9 and 10 talks in Miami between Ukraine and the United States, which European officials also attended, told the Kyiv Independent that they expected to discuss an energy ceasefire placing equal demands on both sides. Instead, they said, Washington struck an economic deal with Moscow while pressing Kyiv to halt refinery attacks, with no matching demand on Russia. Zelenskyy has said repeatedly that Ukraine is ready to pause strikes on Russian energy infrastructure if Russia does the same, and Russia has so far shown no interest, the newspaper reported.
Refinery strikes have become routine in the Russia-Ukraine War. Ukraine says its long-range attacks have disabled 51% of Russia’s refining capacity, the Associated Press reported on October 5, citing the Defense Ministry, and some of Russia’s 32 refineries have been hit as many as 15 times since the war began. The International Energy Agency found that in the first eight months of 2026 a Russian refinery was hit on average once every three days, and that only five major refineries remained untouched by late August. Ukraine has long treated the plants as valid military targets, the Kyiv Independent noted, because oil exports fund the Kremlin’s war chest and refineries produce fuel for the armed forces.
Russia kept up its own attacks. Russian strikes killed at least 24 people and injured 47 across Ukraine overnight, including at least 20 civilians, three of them children, in a strike on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia, the Kyiv Independent reported. On Saturday, ballistic missiles and jet-powered Shahed drones hit Kyiv’s power grid, leaving residents without power and water. Zelenskyy said in a Telegram message that “every additional billion dollars Russia manages to earn from exports” would pay for more drones, missiles and recruits.
Two days before Trump spoke, Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed strikes on the Omsk refinery in Siberia and on another in Bashkortostan, the Kyiv Independent reported. The reports reviewed carried no Ukrainian reply to Trump’s call for a new president.
