U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with the right-wing channel Newsmax that he finds it harder to negotiate with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky than with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I find Zelenskyy to be more difficult to deal with than Putin,” Trump said. “Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with. He doesn’t want to settle. He says he wants to settle, but he doesn’t. No, I’m not a big fan of Zelensky.”
He again criticized Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries, which he said are driving up global fuel prices. “Well, I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets. … There are a lot of targets that you can hit,” Trump said.
Trump again raised the issue of elections in Ukraine, which have not been held because of martial law. He expressed doubt that Zelensky retains public support amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. “I think you need an election because there’s nobody that’s telling me that the people of Ukraine are satisfied having missiles hitting their apartment building,” he said.
Trump said he still believes the war will “end soon,” because “they actually both would like to see it end.” However, he said, there are certain difficulties. “Putin hates Zelensky, and Zelensky hates Putin. And when you have that kind of hatred, it’s very hard to get something settled,” Trump said.
On October 9, Trump agreed with Vladimir Putin on supplies of Russian diesel fuel to the American and global markets. Ukraine and Europe criticized the decision.
On October 11, the U.S. president announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a truce in the energy sector. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the truce announced by Trump “came as news” to him. On October 15, Zelensky said Ukraine had not struck Russian oil refineries for three days but would now resume strikes because Russia had not observed the truce. Russian authorities claim Ukraine never stopped its strikes.
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