US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that "the time has come for Ukraine to have a new president". He made the statement after criticizing Volodímir Zelenski over Ukrainian strikes on diesel refineries in Russia.
According to La Tercera, Trump spoke from Andrews military base in Maryland. BioBioChile, however, places the remarks outside the White House, before the president traveled to Tennessee for a campaign rally ahead of the congressional elections.
"Zelenski could have settled this war many, many times," Trump said, adding that the Ukrainian leader "chooses not to" and "wants to create problems for the world." He also said the war "started because of incompetence" and that Ukraine would not have "already lost 30% of its country."
Washington's main complaint concerns energy. "We have told Zelenski: 'You can do whatever you want to Russia, but don't attack the refineries because that creates a problem for the world,'" Trump said. According to him, the attacks hurt US farmers and ranchers because Russia supplies a significant share of the world's diesel.
The backdrop is a recent agreement between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to La Tercera, Moscow will supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel "immediately" to the United States and the global market. Another 500,000 metric tons would follow in November, with one million metric tons after that.
The deal creates an exception to the sanctions Washington has imposed on Russia's energy sector since the invasion began in 2022. According to BioBioChile, Trump announced hours earlier that he will authorize Russian diesel transactions until April to curb the global rise in prices.
Ukraine has continued attacking Russian refineries in recent weeks, despite Washington's warnings, with the aim of slowing Moscow's military offensive. On Friday, Zelenski called the agreement "unfair" and "unbecoming of an ally." He also said the measure "plays into Russia's hands" because it allows Russia to "kill more people, prolong the war" and inflict greater damage.
Trump's remarks coincided with another sign of distance between the two governments. According to BioBioChile, the delegation Kyiv sent to Florida to meet with the US special envoys for Ukraine returned early. Neither source details why the visit was shortened.
The episode exposes an underlying tension in the Western alliance. On the one hand, the United States is prioritizing fuel prices during the congressional election campaign. On the other, Ukraine considers Russian energy infrastructure a legitimate military target. A US president publicly calling for the replacement of the leader of an allied country at war also opens a debate about sovereignty and Kyiv's room to set its own strategy.
For Latin America, the dispute matters because of diesel, a key fuel for transport and agriculture whose price is set on the international market. The sources do not detail specific effects on Chile. The next development to watch is whether Russia delivers the November shipments and whether Kyiv continues its attacks on refineries.
