Trump Suggests Ukraine Remove Zelensky and Replace Him With Leader ‘Who Can Make a Deal’

“U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Ukraine should consider replacing President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggesting that he has been the impediment to the two sides coming to a peace agreement and ending the over four and a half year conflict with Russia.

 

Speaking to reporters from the White House lawn on Saturday, President Trump said of Ukraine, “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” adding that “for some reason (Zelensky) never does.”

 

President Trump repeated his assertion that the conflict would not have begun were he in office at the time of 2022 rather than former President Joe Biden, saying, “that conflict would have never started. There was no reason that that conflict with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence.”

 

Trump went on to admonish Zelensky for having “lost 30 per cent of your country and you’ve had over a million Ukrainians go, over 1 million Ukrainians killed. That’s a conflict that should have never started. And I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

 

Zelensky, an actor who portrayed a president on Ukrainian television before being elected to the same office in 2019, has come under criticism from Washington for having failed to hold elections scheduled in 2024 that were cancelled under martial law. While other nations have held successful elections during conflict, Zelensky claimed that it was too expensive and difficult due to collect votes from the Ukrainian diaspora across Europe. Trump has suggested that this makes the Ukraine leader a “dictator“.

 

The comments on Saturday from Trump came hours after he secured a deal with Vladimir Putin for Russia to “immediately” supply the “American and Global Marketplace” with 300,000 tonnes of diesel fuel, with a further 500,000 planned for November, and another one million tonnes “immediately thereafter”, with the ultimate goal of at least three million tonnes being added to the global markets.”