WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, suggesting Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end his country’s war with Russia and blaming him for high diesel prices in the United States. “I suggest they find a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made a lot of deals and for some reason he never does,” Trump said. prices ahead of the US midterm elections, has been urging Zelenskyy for weeks to stop attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. He has also tried to blame Ukraine for record US diesel prices, rather than the US-led war in Iran, which has driven up global energy prices. “He wants to create problems for the world. He wants to create problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel,” Trump said, before leaving for Tennessee, where he was preparing to rally Republican voters. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted last month and released Oct. 1 found that Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran and blame him for higher prices. Trump also suggested that if he had been president of the United States in 2022, “that war would never have started. There was no reason for that war to start with Ukraine and Russia. It started because of incompetence.” a million people pass between the two, more than 2 million people killed. That’s a war that should never have started and I think it’s time for Ukraine to have a new president,” Trump said. Independent estimates indicate that around 20% of Ukraine’s territory is under Russian control. British defense officials recently estimated that around half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in the war; there are no reliable recent estimates of how many Ukrainians have died. 20 people killed in Russian bombing in Ukraine on Saturday Trump’s extraordinary intervention came after Russian strikes killed at least 20 people in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday Related videos 3:14 FlyDubai flight bound for Israel diverted after physical altercation between pilots Previous video Next video Story continues below advertisement Three children were among those killed when Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on Saturday. At least 18 people were killed. wounds. Get daily national news Get daily news from Canada in your inbox so you never miss the day’s top stories. Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range air war as their armies remain largely stuck on the front lines, more than four and a half years since the full-scale invasion of Moscow. Ukraine is struggling to counter increasing Russian bombing that has killed more than 60 people in the past four days. diesel “Today, Russia expressed its gratitude for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five slide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote Saturday on He said that every additional billion dollars Russia earns from exports would help pay for weapons components, drone upgrades, missile production and the recruitment of mercenaries, and that Moscow would only be willing to stop when its ability to fight diminished from the diesel deal “signals that it appears permissible to continue attacking. And this must be corrected,” he said, urging the United States, Europe and other partners to limit Russia’s ability to wage war. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was coordinating measures to counter the additional revenue Russia will receive, and that he had spoken with French President Emmanuel Macron about bolstering air defenses, warning of an increased risk of new missile attacks in the coming days. He also said he had discussed the developments with Finnish President Alexander Stubb and that Ukraine would receive ammunition in the coming days. for the F-16s it uses to intercept Shahed drones. President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Instead, the American leader announced on Friday that Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately after that,” Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons “in a short period of time,” he wrote. Gathered at a memorial to fallen soldiers in Independence Square, she welcomed the agreement with a mix of anger and resignation. “Trump has once again shown his true face,” said Oleksandr Petrenko, 26, “He didn’t care about the situation, the bombings or the destruction of our homes. The only thing he cares about is oil or fuel prices and how much Americans have to pay. “There will be elections soon,” Petrenko said. “So he needs to emphasize to his voters that gasoline will be cheap. But it won’t be effective.” For Oksana Yakunina, a financial advisor from the central city of Kropyvnytskyi, the announcement “really didn’t come as a surprise.” “Trump has been working with Putin for a long time,” he told The Associated Press. European allies question US-Russia deal Ukraine’s European allies expressed dismay at the deal and said they remained committed to sanctions. “as energy revenues are critical to the Russian war fund,” and noted that the European Union would adopt its most comprehensive sanctions package yet on Monday, with 1,600 lists targeting Russia’s military-industrial complex. The German government “remains committed to the sanctions imposed on Russia and is working with its European partners to impose new sanctions,” spokesman Stefan Kornelius said, adding that support for Ukraine “remains unwavering.” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski questioned whether Russia could comply at all. Citing reports from his embassy of fuel shortages even in Moscow, and “serious sources” saying Ukraine had damaged about half of Russia’s refining capacity, he asked X: “So where will the surpluses for export come from?” Trump announced the deal when his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Ukrainian officials in Miami on Friday to discuss a proposal to end the war. “I think our team is simply being used as a smokescreen. And that’s certainly not fair. That’s certainly not how partners should treat each other,” Zelenskyy said Friday. Speaking about Friday’s announcement, a senior Ukrainian official told the AP that the Ukrainian side was not aware of the deal before the announcement. Speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, he said Saturday that the announcement of the diesel deal was not linked to anything under discussion between the U.S. and Ukrainian negotiating teams meeting in Florida. He confirmed that the Ukrainian delegation had left Florida and was on its way back to Ukraine. ___Daly reported from Washington and Morton reported from London. Associated Press writers Bela Szandelszky in kyiv, Ukraine, and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.___Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine