{"id":650884,"date":"2026-10-10T20:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T20:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/650884\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T20:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T20:38:08","slug":"us-president-donald-trump-says-it-is-time-for-ukraine-to-get-rid-of-zelenskiy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/650884\/","title":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump says it is time for Ukraine to get rid of Zelenskiy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US<\/a> president Donald Trump<\/a> has said it is time for Ukraine<\/a> to get a new president, suggesting Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> has not done enough to end his country\u2019s war with Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Trump said: \u201cI suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal\u2033, adding that \u201cfor some reason [Zelenskiy] never does\u201d.<\/p>\n

He has also sought to blame record US diesel prices on Ukraine rather than the US-led war in Iran<\/a>, which has elevated world energy prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel,\u201d Trump said, before departing for Tennessee where he was set to rally Republican voters.<\/p>\n

Trump also suggested that if he had been US president in 2022, \u201cthat war would have never started. There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Zelenskiy had \u201clost 30 per cent of your country and you\u2019ve had over a million people go between the two of them, over two million people killed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a war that should have never started. And I think it\u2019s time for Ukraine to get a new president,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trump agrees diesel supply deal with RussiaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The extraordinary intervention came after Russian strikes killed at least 20 people in Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Three children were among those killed when Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine\u2019s state emergency service said. At least 18 people were wounded.<\/p>\n

The attacks came a day after Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel<\/a> that Kyiv warned would help bankroll Moscow\u2019s war.<\/p>\n

Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line, more than 4\u00bd years since Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is struggling to counter escalating Russian bombardments that have killed more than 55 people over the past four days.<\/p>\n

Trump said on social media on Friday that he struck the deal with Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/a> in a phone call in which he had been expected to discuss a suspected case of plague<\/a> in Russia.<\/p>\n

Instead, Trump announced that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and a million tons \u201cimmediately thereafter\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russia will deliver an additional three million tons \u201cwithin a short period of time\u201d after that, he wrote.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe rubble of a residential building destroyed by a Russian airstrike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Saturday. Photograph: Kateryna Klochko\/AP <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s shock announcement was in stark contrast to a sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last month that aimed to clamp down on the oil and gas revenues that fuel Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n

In a lengthy post online reacting to the deal, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> said Russia would repay it \u201cwith further terror and perfidy\u201d. He cast it as an investment in the war, allowing it to be prolonged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt plays into Russia\u2019s hands \u2013 allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to a statement released by the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, Zelenskiy called it \u201ca weak decision, unfortunately, a weak decision by strong partners\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump announced the deal as his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were meeting Ukrainian officials in Miami to discuss a proposal to end the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe our team is simply being used as a smokescreen. And that is certainly not fair. It is certainly not how partners should treat each other,\u201d Zelenskiy said. \u2013 AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump has said it is time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Volodymyr…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,150432,43,3589,40,38,41,39,9688,115,5936,58419],"class_list":["post-650884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-israel-iran-conflict","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine-crisis","tag-united-states","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}