Trump Calls For Ditching Zelensky~Ukraine Shrugs

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at a World War II memorial ceremony in Kyiv on Tuesday.Credit...Genya Savilov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 President Trump lashed out at President Volodymyr Zelensky for striking Russian oil refineries. Mr. Zelensky said he’ll stop — if Russia does too.

By Maria VarenikovaDzvinka Pinchuk and Ivan Nechepurenko

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

New York Times

Ukraine on Sunday shrugged off President Trump’s suggestion that it ditch Volodymyr Zelensky as its president because it has continued to strike Russian oil refineries.

Mr. Trump has called out Mr. Zelensky for the strikes, blaming them for rising global energy prices. Ukraine needs “a new president,” he said on Saturday.

Mr. Zelensky shot back on Sunday that Ukraine was ready to stop striking Russian refineries, but only if Russia stopped striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure. “Any de-escalation steps must be reciprocal and backed by real guarantees,” he wrote on X.

On Saturday, after Mr. Trump made his comments, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said that Mr. Zelensky “has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide.” 

“Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well,” he added.

Mr. Zelensky has previously said he would hold elections if Russia agreed to a cease-fire. In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, he said to hold a vote safely, there would have to be a cease-fire lasting 60 days.

Ukrainians have grown accustomed to Mr. Trump’s off-the-cuff foreign policy.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump announced in a social media post that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy cease-fire.” Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has confirmed that there is such a deal.

Mr. Zelensky said that he had discussed Mr. Trump’s announcement in a call with international allies, and that they were “awaiting details from the American side.”

“Ukraine supports the cease-fire, and it is important that Russia supports it as well,” he wrote on social media.

But shortly after Mr. Trump’s announcement, Russia struck a power plant in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office — an attack that offered a stark indication of Moscow’s position on a possible cease-fire. 

On Friday the Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian diesel sales, saying the move would lower prices.

But some question whether Russian diesel will indeed ease the pinch. And lifting sanctions on Russian diesel will undermine U.S. energy sanctions. Some European countries, including Germany, said they would stand by sanctions despite the U.S.-Russia diesel deal.

“Suspending sanctions on Russian diesel provides Moscow with more revenues to wage war,” wrote Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, on X. “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t.”

Online, some Ukrainians bristled at the suggestion that Washington or Moscow should dictate who leads their country, but largely dismissed Mr. Trump’s remark as domestic politicking before the midterm elections in the United States.

“Trump is trying to save his own skin ahead of the elections,” Iryna Tsariuk, an activist from Odesa, wrote in a social media post on Facebook. “He doesn’t care at all about Ukraine or the fact that Russia killed more than 70 people on Wednesday and Thursday,” she added. 

Russian missile and drone strikes continued overnight Saturday to Sunday, wounding eight people in Kyiv, the capital, and killing an 11-year-old boy in Dnipro, a city in central Ukraine, according to local authorities. After Russian strikes on energy and water infrastructure, Kyiv authorities urged residents to stock up on water.

“Russia is leveling Ukrainian cities, starving people in Oleshky, killing entire families in one attack, but for some reason you won’t find Tweets that Putin has gone too far,” wrote Yarema Dukh, a political analyst and communications expert, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Even Ukrainians who oppose Mr. Zelensky have objected to Mr. Trump’s most recent remarks, arguing that decisions about Ukraine’s leadership must be made by Ukrainians.

Mr. Zelensky has faced widespread criticism in Ukraine over corruption allegations involving people in his inner circle and over his personnel decisions, including the dismissal of his popular defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

The share of Ukrainians who trust Mr. Zelensky has fallen from 65 percent last year to 58 percent, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. 

But if anything, the rebuke from the U.S. president has the potential to unite Ukrainians. Mr. Zelensky saw a bump in support at home after Mr. Trump criticized him in a White House meeting in 2025.

"There is nothing in the world that could boost Zelensky’s approval rating today more than Trump’s childish outbursts at him, screaming that he needs to be replaced,” Mykhailo Lavrovskyi, a Ukrainian serviceman, said on X.

In Russia on Sunday, Ukrainian drones hit another major data center operated by the Russian technology giant Yandex. The center, in the Vladimir region east of Moscow, was the company’s third to be attacked in Russia over the past four days, prompting widespread internet disruptions across the country.

Web services were also knocked offline for Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg and Vkusno I Tochka, the fast-food chain that replaced McDonald’s in Russia.

In a statement on Friday, Yandex called its data centers its “iron heart” and said restoring services was a “top priority,” though “unfortunately, it is a complex challenge.”