Trump says Zelensky never sought to end the war

US President Donald Trump said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is allegedly not interested in ending the war with Russia. The American leader also accused Kyiv of worsening the situation on the global diesel fuel market due to strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Trump wrote this on October 18 on his social network Truth Social.

According to the US president, Zelensky continues to attack Russian refineries, despite negative consequences for the global fuel market. Trump claims that American farmers, entrepreneurs and other diesel fuel consumers suffer from these strikes.

He also criticized the amount of financial aid that Ukraine receives from Europe and previously received from the Joe Biden administration.

"He does not want to end this war and probably never wanted to", - Trump said, referring to Zelensky.

The American president also expressed the opinion that two years ago Ukraine could have agreed to end the war on more favorable terms than now. He mentioned the loss of territories, destruction and significant human losses.

"His country lies in ruins, much of its territory is lost, its oceans and seas have disappeared, and the male population has declined, been wounded and/or killed", – Trump said.

Separately, Trump explained his decision not to introduce new sanctions restrictions against Russia. According to him, Washington is negotiating on ending the war and does not want to push Moscow away from the negotiation process.

The US president reported progress in diplomatic contacts, but did not provide concrete results. He emphasized that he could return to imposing sanctions later.

Trump also called it important that Russia, according to his assessment, currently provides Iran with significantly less support than it could. The American leader said he wants to maintain this situation.

The statement came amid aggravated relations between Kyiv and Washington over the US agreement with Russia on diesel fuel exports and Trump's decision to postpone the application of new sanctions against Moscow.

Earlier in an interview with Bloomberg, Zelensky said he proposed to the US to stop strikes on Russian oil refineries in exchange for additional missiles for Patriot systems. According to him, the American side insists on stopping the attacks, but does not agree to the counter conditions proposed by Kyiv.

Based on materials from: Truth Social, Bloomberg, Axios