Donald Trump has gone further than ever in his feud with Volodymyr Zelensky. Outside his Washington residence on Saturday, the president argued that Ukrainians ought to choose someone else to lead them, someone “who can make a deal”, accusing Zelensky of letting one chance after another slip away.
The outburst followed a fierce Ukrainian reaction to an energy arrangement Washington reached with Moscow on Friday. Washington has agreed to freeze its penalties on Moscow’s diesel trade through 7 April. An opening tranche of 300,000 tonnes is meant to reach buyers soon, with 500,000 more in November and far larger volumes promised later, depending on the state of Russia’s refineries.
For Trump, the motive is the price at the pump. The war on Iran and the near shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz have left American drivers paying an average of $6.28 for a gallon of diesel, motoring group AAA reports, against $3.68 twelve months earlier. With midterm elections only weeks away, Republicans are feeling the pain.
He blames Kyiv as much as Tehran. Ukrainian drones have repeatedly set Russian refineries ablaze, and Trump says he warned Zelensky to leave them alone. “He better damn well stop,” he warned.
Zelensky, for his part, calls the sanctions pause a gift to the Kremlin. In his view, each additional billion in export income turns straight into weapons, drone upgrades and hired fighters. He pointed to the deadly glide-bomb attack on apartment blocks in Zaporizhzhia as Moscow’s way of saying thank you. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha replied to Trump that only Ukrainians get to decide who governs them. Martial law, in place since 2022, means no election can currently be held anyway.
The Kremlin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev welcomed Trump’s words as “historic”. European capitals took the opposite view. Kaja Kallas, who runs EU diplomacy, insisted that Europe would not ease up on Moscow, and ministers aim to adopt their largest sanctions package yet on Monday. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham promised Kyiv his solidarity, and even Republican congressman Don Bacon argued for tougher, not softer, measures.
