In a bombshell statement, Trump told reporters, among other things, that he believed it was time for Ukraine to have a new president.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal. He had plenty of opportunities to make deals, but he didn’t make any. If I were president, this war would never have started. This war started because of incompetence. You’ve lost more than 30% of your country’s territory. More than two million people have been killed. This is a war that should never have started.

“Zelensky could have settled this war many times, many, many times, but he chooses not to do it. It’s very difficult. This is a war that should never have started. If I were president, if the election hadn’t been rigged, I would be president, and this war would never have started. But Zelensky could have ended it many times and chose not to do so,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question.

He continued: “We told him: ‘You can do whatever you want in Russia. But don’t hit the refineries, because that creates a problem for the whole world.’ And he wants to create problems for the world. He wants to create problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large part of the world’s diesel.”

“And we told them: ‘Do whatever you want, but don’t hit the diesel production facilities, because there’s a big problem, a major shortage.’ And what does he do? He goes and hits the diesel production facilities…” Trump remarked pointedly.

The US president’s remarks follow an Axios report, which said Washington had asked Kyiv to unilaterally halt attacks on Russian refineries, believing that the strikes had contributed to rising petrol prices for American consumers.

Zelensky had proposed to Trump, as well as to US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a reciprocal agreement covering energy infrastructure. Specifically, he had said Ukraine was ready to stop attacking Russian refineries provided Russia halted its strikes on Ukrainian power plants.

Trump rejected the proposal because, according to the US official, the American president did not consider the two categories of attacks equivalent and wanted Kyiv to halt its strikes without linking the move to a corresponding commitment from Moscow.