Trump Says It's Time for Ukraine to Get “a New President.” Putin's Envoy Called That “Iconic and Historic.”

President Trump hosts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a lunch meeting in the White House Cabinet Room on Oct. 17, 2025. Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Of all the reactions to President Trump's latest broadside at Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the warmest came from Moscow. Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin's envoy, called the president's words “iconic and historic” and said Ukraine “needs leadership actually focused on peace,” the BBC reported.

What Trump said, speaking to reporters at the White House on Saturday before leaving for a Republican rally in Tennessee, was blunt even by his standards. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does,” he said, according to CNBC. Then: “I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president.”

The remarks came one day after Trump announced a deal with Putin to bring Russian diesel onto the American and world markets, with Washington suspending sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April 7. The Hoosier Enquirer broke down that deal Friday night.

The farm-country case behind the president's anger

Trump's complaint is specific, and it is not crazy. For weeks he has told Kyiv to stop striking Russian oil refineries, arguing that every plant knocked offline tightens a world diesel supply that is already strained. “We said, you could do whatever you want to Russia, don't hit the refineries, because that's a world problem that's caused,” he said Saturday, the Kyiv Independent reported. “And he's not going to affect our farmers, he's not going to affect our ranchers, and he's not going to affect the rest of the world. So he better damn well stop.”

Anyone running a combine in Indiana this month understands the pressure he is describing. The national average for diesel stood at $6.28 a gallon, up from $5.94 last month and $3.68 a year ago, the BBC reported, citing AAA. Ukrainian drone strikes cut Russia's diesel production by an estimated 30%, according to the International Energy Agency figures the BBC cited. Last week the president also ordered federal diesel-tax and dyed-diesel relief that analysts told InkFreeNews would help only at the margins.

There is a second half to that story, though, and the president left it out. Diesel and gasoline prices took off after the war with Iran began in February and the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed, cutting off a route that normally carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil products, the BBC reported. An AP-NORC poll published Oct. 1 found Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of Iran and blame him for higher prices, CNBC noted. Blaming Kyiv for the pump is convenient in a midterm year. It is not the whole bill.

Numbers that don't match the record

Trump told reporters Ukraine has “lost 30% of your country” and that the war has seen “over 2 million people killed.” Neither figure lines up with what is publicly known. Independent estimates put about 20% of Ukraine's territory under Russian control, The Associated Press reported, and British defense officials recently estimated about half a million Russian soldiers have been killed, while no reliable recent figure exists for Ukrainian deaths.

A president making the case for a peace deal does not need to inflate it. The war is brutal enough on the real numbers.

Kyiv's answer, and the dead in Zaporizhzhia

Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, answered on X within hours. “He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide,” he wrote, Al Jazeera reported. “Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well. He deserves support.”

Deciding is easier said than done. Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, which means elections are suspended, the BBC noted. Trump called for Ukrainian elections last December too, saying voters there should have the chance to replace Zelenskyy.

Saturday's remarks also landed on a bloody day. Russian aerial bombs on residential buildings in the Zaporizhzhia region killed at least 20 people, three of them children, Ukrainian officials told the AP, and missiles struck Kyiv in a daytime attack. “Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

Zelenskyy has said repeatedly that Ukraine is ready to pause strikes on Russian energy sites if Russia agrees to the same terms, and Russia has shown no interest, the Kyiv Independent reported. Ukrainian negotiators met Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Miami on Friday, and a senior Ukrainian official told the AP that Kyiv did not know about the diesel deal before it was announced. The delegation has gone home.

Republicans uneasy, the White House unbothered

Not every Republican is on board. “Unfortunately, while I understand the desire to bring down diesel prices, I am concerned the lifting of sanctions on Russian oil will only fund the Kremlin's war machine—emboldening more violence and destruction, as we have seen in recent days,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas posted Friday, the New York Post reported.

Katie Zacharia, the president's new press secretary, defended the move on Fox & Friends Weekend. “President Trump has heard people have been frustrated with the gas prices. People are frustrated with the increasing grocery prices,” she said. “And he is delivering what he always does, which are solutions.”

Europe is going the other way. The European Union plans to adopt its most sweeping sanctions package yet on Monday, with 1,600 listings aimed at Russia's military-industrial complex, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said, according to the AP. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas put it plainly to the BBC: “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won't.”

An order filled by the plants Ukraine keeps hitting

Here is the part of the deal that deserves the most scrutiny. Russia is to release 300,000 tons of diesel first, 500,000 more in November, then a million tons, then another 3 million “within a short period of time.” But Trump himself wrote that the larger deliveries are “based on the condition of their diesel refineries,” the BBC reported. Poland's foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, citing fuel shortages even in Moscow, asked on X, “So where will the surpluses for export come from?”

Put those facts side by side and the president's Saturday demand makes more sense, and it should worry anyone who wants the United States negotiating from strength. Ukraine can't choose a new president while martial law is in force. Washington, by contrast, has already chosen something: for the next six months, the American diesel plan depends on Russian refineries staying up and running, the same refineries Kyiv keeps hitting.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.