Trump: Ukraine should elect a new president

President Donald Trump said Saturday that Ukraine should elect a new president, criticizing Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to reach a deal to end the war with Russia.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” he said at the White House. "For some reason, he never does."

Trump also argued that the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, would never have started if he had been president at the time.

“That war would have never started. There was no reason that that war with Ukraine and Russia started. It started due to incompetence,” Trump said.

He criticized Zelenskyy over Ukraine’s territorial losses and the heavy human toll of the conflict, saying the country had lost 30% of its territory and that more than 2 million people had been killed.

“That’s a war that should have never started,” Trump said. “And I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”