As rescue workers pulled bodies from rubble in Zaporizhzhia — twenty dead, three of them children — President Trump stood at the White House and called for Ukraine to replace its wartime leader, while simultaneously announcing a diesel supply deal with Russia that required waiving the very sanctions he had signed into law weeks prior. The moment distilled a deeper question that has shadowed every great power conflict: whether the pursuit of economic relief and diplomatic leverage can be disentangled from the moral weight of who benefits and who bleeds. History rarely allows such clean separati
Trump calls for Ukraine leadership change, defends Russia diesel deal amid strikes
Russian strikes killed at least 20 people, including three children, in Zaporizhzhia region, with 18 wounded; missiles struck Kyiv wounding four.
Russia expressed its thanks by dropping five glide bombs
Mark
Why would Trump call for Zelenskyy's removal at this exact moment—while Russian strikes are still happening?
Mimi
The timing is jarring, but Trump's argument is that Zelenskyy hasn't negotiated hard enough. He's saying a different leader could broker a deal. Whether that's strategically sound or not, it's the frame he's operating from.
Luke
But we should be clear: Trump is making a counterfactual claim—that he would have prevented the invasion in 2022. That's not something we can verify. We can verify that he's now lifting sanctions he signed into law.
Mark
The diesel deal—is that actually helping Russia, or is it just fuel for the global market?
Mimi
Technically, it's fuel for global markets. But Zelenskyy's point is that it frees up Russia's own refining capacity and hard currency to spend on the war. If Russia can sell diesel abroad, it doesn't need to use its own production for domestic needs.
Luke
That's Zelenskyy's interpretation. Trump's Treasury says the waiver is temporary and necessary for global energy stability. Those are two different claims about the same action, and both could be true.
Mark
What does Pence's criticism actually signal here?
Mimi
It's significant because Pence served under Trump and generally supported his foreign policy. If he's breaking ranks this sharply, it suggests the diesel deal crosses a line even for Trump loyalists—it looks like directly funding Russia's war effort.
Luke
Pence also invokes the NATO escalation scenario—the idea that if Russia takes Ukraine, it won't stop there. But that's a prediction, not a fact we know yet. What we do know is that Pence thinks this deal makes that scenario more likely.
Mark
Is Zelenskyy actually losing support in Ukraine because of these losses?
Mimi
His foreign minister says he still has the backing of the Ukrainian people. We don't have recent polling data in this reporting, so we can't independently verify that claim.
Luke
Right. The reporting tells us what Sybiga said, not what Ukrainians actually think. That's an important distinction. We know Zelenskyy is still in office and still leading the war effort, but public opinion is a separate question.
Le Pouls
- Russian aerial bombs killed at least twenty people in Zaporizhzhia, including three children, even as Trump publicly questioned Zelenskyy's fitness to lead Ukraine.
- Trump announced a deal to supply Russia with over 4.8 million tons of diesel, requiring Treasury to waive sanctions he himself had signed weeks earlier to strangle Russia's war revenues.
- Trump blamed Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries for high U.S. diesel prices, inverting the logic of the sanctions regime and framing Zelenskyy as the aggressor harming American farmers.
- Former Vice President Pence called the deal a betrayal and demanded its immediate rescission, warning that a Russian victory in Ukraine would eventually put American troops on a collision course with Moscow.
- Zelenskyy and Ukraine's Foreign Minister rejected Trump's call for leadership change as illegitimate interference, with Zelenskyy warning the diesel deal would be repaid in further Russian terror — a warning punctuated by missile strikes on Kyiv hours later.
As rescue workers pulled bodies from rubble in Zaporizhzhia — twenty dead, three of them children — President Trump stood at the White House and called for Ukraine to replace its wartime leader, while simultaneously announcing a diesel supply deal with Russia that required waiving the very sanctions he had signed into law weeks prior. The moment distilled a deeper question that has shadowed every great power conflict: whether the pursuit of economic relief and diplomatic leverage can be disentangled from the moral weight of who benefits and who bleeds. History rarely allows such clean separations, and the missiles that struck Kyiv hours later suggested Moscow was not reading the moment as a step toward peace.
On a Saturday morning when Russian bombs were still falling on residential buildings in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region — killing at least twenty people, among them three children — President Trump stepped before reporters at the White House and called for Ukraine to find a new leader. He argued that Zelenskyy had repeatedly failed to negotiate a settlement and should step aside for someone willing to make a deal. Trump framed the entire war as preventable, claiming the invasion would never have happened under his watch, and cited the staggering human and territorial costs as evidence that Zelenskyy bore responsibility for a conflict that, in his telling, should never have begun.
But the more consequential development had come the day before, in policy rather than rhetoric. Trump announced that Russia would immediately begin supplying hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel to global markets, with deliveries scaling to more than 4.8 million tons over a short period. To enable the arrangement, the Treasury Department would temporarily waive sanctions on Russia's energy sector — the same sanctions Trump had signed into law just weeks earlier, explicitly designed to cut off the oil revenues sustaining Moscow's war machine. Trump justified the reversal by blaming Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries for driving up diesel prices and hurting American farmers, a logic that effectively recast the sanctions regime's purpose entirely.
The reaction was sharp and bipartisan. Former Vice President Mike Pence called the deal a betrayal and demanded Trump rescind it immediately, warning that a Russian overrun of Ukraine would eventually bring American forces into direct confrontation with Moscow. Zelenskyy responded that Russia would repay the diesel deal with more terror, and when Russian missiles struck Kyiv later that day — wounding four — he posted that Moscow had expressed its thanks for the sanctions waiver by dropping glide bombs on residential buildings. Ukraine's Foreign Minister added that Zelenskyy's legitimacy was a matter for Ukrainians alone, not foreign capitals, to decide.
The day's arc left a stark picture: a U.S. president reversing his own sanctions law in a move that aligned with Russia's material interests, while Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilians continued uninterrupted — suggesting that in Moscow, the waiver was read not as a peace gesture, but as a signal that the cost of continued aggression had just gone down.
On Saturday morning, as Russian aerial bombs fell on residential buildings in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, killing at least twenty people including three children, President Trump stood at the White House and called for Ukraine to replace its leader. The timing was stark: while rescue workers were still pulling bodies from rubble, Trump told reporters that Volodymyr Zelenskyy had failed to negotiate an end to the war and should step aside for someone willing to make a deal.
"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," Trump said as he departed for Tennessee. He framed the conflict itself as preventable, claiming that had he been president in 2022, the invasion would never have occurred. He cited the human toll—over a million people displaced, more than two million killed—and the territorial loss of roughly thirty percent of Ukraine, all to argue that Zelenskyy bore responsibility for a war that "should have never started."
But Trump's most consequential move came not in his rhetoric but in policy. On Friday, he had announced a sweeping diesel deal with Russia: the Kremlin would immediately supply more than three hundred thousand tons of diesel fuel to global markets, followed by five hundred thousand tons in November and one million tons shortly after. Within a short period, Russia would deliver an additional three million tons. To make this happen, the Treasury Department announced it would temporarily waive sanctions on Russia's energy sector—the very sanctions Trump himself had signed into law just weeks earlier, designed to choke off the oil and gas revenues funding Moscow's war machine.
Trump defended the arrangement by blaming Ukraine. He accused Zelenskyy of striking Russian oil refineries to drive up diesel prices before the midterm election, harming American farmers and ranchers. "He wants to make problems for the world," Trump said. The logic was inverted: sanctions on Russian energy were meant to weaken Russia's ability to wage war, yet Trump framed lifting those sanctions as necessary to protect American agriculture from the consequences of Ukrainian military action.
The contradiction was not lost on those watching. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who served under Trump, called the deal "a betrayal" and urged Trump to rescind it immediately. "America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine," Pence wrote on social media. He warned that if Russia overran Ukraine, it would only be a matter of time before Russian forces tested NATO borders—a calculation that would eventually require American troops to confront Moscow directly.
Zelenskyy's response was swift and pointed. In a lengthy post online, he said Russia would repay the diesel deal "with further terror and perfidy." He framed it as an investment in prolonging the war, allowing Moscow to kill more, wage longer, and inflict greater losses on the world. Hours later, when Russian missiles struck Kyiv in a daytime attack, wounding four people, Zelenskyy posted on social media: "Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia." The message was unmistakable—that easing pressure on Russia was read in Moscow as permission to continue fighting.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga defended Zelenskyy's legitimacy, noting that he retained the support of the Ukrainian people and that they alone had the right to decide their leadership. "Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well," Sybiga said, a direct rebuke to Trump's call for regime change.
The day's events crystallized a fundamental split in American policy toward Ukraine. Trump had moved from imposing sanctions designed to cripple Russia's war economy to lifting those sanctions and supplying diesel fuel to the global market—a reversal that contradicted his own recent legislation and aligned with Russia's material interests. Meanwhile, Russian strikes continued unabated, killing civilians in Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv, suggesting that Moscow interpreted the sanctions waiver not as a gesture toward peace but as a signal that the cost of continued aggression had just decreased.
Citations marquantes
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.— President Trump
Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia.— President Zelenskyy
America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine.— Former Vice President Mike Pence
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