US President Donald Trump said on Monday, October 19, that in his view “it is time for someone else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine” instead of Volodymyr Zelensky. The statement is quoted by RMF24 citing PAP.
According to the RMF24/PAP report, Trump said Zelensky “should have ended this war long ago”. He added that if the Ukrainian president had listened to him, he would have negotiated a much better deal, and on his side there would be “a million people” who would still be alive. The American leader also asked what had been achieved, stating that very little had, and that a million people had died. He also said Americans had given Ukraine a lot and received nothing in return. He did not name who would replace Zelensky at the negotiating table. The circumstances of the statement (a speech, a conversation with journalists) were not specified in the available reports.
Trump's earlier post on Truth Social
The criticism is not new. On Sunday, October 18, Trump published a lengthy post on Truth Social explaining why he was not signing a document concerning Russia. In it, he wrote, among other things:
“Zelensky is using Russian diesel refineries as a target, knowing that these attacks seriously harm world diesel markets, including the American one.”
— Donald Trump on Truth Social, October 18 (original)
Trump also claimed that Zelensky “does not want to end this war” and could have concluded a better deal two years ago. At the same time, he wrote that he is negotiating peace between Russia and Ukraine and that “great progress is being made”. He stressed that he did not want to do anything that would push Russia away from the negotiating table.
Zelensky's response and the Patriot issue
On Sunday, Zelensky told Bloomberg that, in his view, the Trump administration is taking steps to pressure Ukraine into capitulation. He proposed that Ukraine stop attacking refineries in Russia if it receives more missiles for Patriot systems. According to RMF24, the US is currently delivering 12 Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine per month, roughly a quarter of the number under the Joe Biden administration. These missiles are now being sold rather than provided free of charge as aid.
What it means
Trump has not announced a formal change of negotiator, and the composition of the Ukrainian delegation is decided by the authorities in Kyiv. However, the statement reflects a growing dispute between Washington and Kyiv over attacks on Russian oil infrastructure and over arms deliveries. For Poland, as a country bordering Ukraine and supporting it militarily, the key questions will be whether the US reduces its support and whether the shape of peace talks changes. At the time of publication, we had not seen an official reaction from Kyiv to Trump’s Monday statement. We previously covered earlier stages of the talks in our article on the Trump–Zelensky meeting without a breakthrough.
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