Trump: Reaching a peace agreement with Putin is easier than with Zelenskyy

U.S. President Donald Trump has again criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and questioned his willingness to reach a peace deal. The American leader also confirmed that he had asked Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries.

During an interview, a journalist asked whether the Russian-Ukrainian war could end before Trump’s presidential term is over. He replied that hostilities could end soon, but did not give a specific timeline:

“It should end soon. I think both sides actually want it to end. But I think it’s harder to make a deal with Zelenskyy than with Putin,” Donald Trump said.

Another part of the conversation focused on attacks on Russia’s oil-refining industry. The journalist noted that yesterday, October 15, Ukraine resumed such strikes despite earlier calls from Washington to stop them. Asked whether he had personally appealed to Zelenskyy, the U.S. president replied:

“I asked him, I asked him. Zelenskyy is not the person we should be dealing with. I think if they’re going to make a deal eventually, they won’t do it with him. He doesn’t want to make a deal. He says he wants to make a deal, but he doesn’t,” Trump said.

The U.S. president stressed that he is not a fan of Zelenskyy and blamed Ukraine’s leadership for the war’s devastating consequences. He named the personal animosity between the Ukrainian president and Russian President Vladimir Putin as one of the obstacles to reaching an agreement.

Speaking about the start of the full-scale invasion, Trump repeated his claim that it supposedly would not have happened if he had been in power in 2020. In his view, Russia initially planned its offensive on Kyiv as a short-term operation.

The U.S. president explained the halt in the Russian advance with his own version of events: supposedly, one of the generals failed to turn onto the right rural road, after which the tanks got bogged down in marshy terrain.

At the same time, Trump acknowledged that the war has been going on for years and has caused enormous losses on both sides:

“Ukraine has lost so many of its men. Russia has too, but Russia is a huge country. Russia has millions of people, 150 million people,” U.S. President Donald Trump said.

The U.S. president’s claims about Zelenskyy’s unwillingness to negotiate and the reasons for the halt in Russia’s advance are his own assessments, not established facts.

Earlier, we reported:

• Defense Forces strike the Ilsky oil refinery — fire breaks out at the plant
• Trump urges Zelenskyy not to strike diesel fuel producers in Russia
• Siberia is no longer a rear area: strike on Russia’s largest oil refinery could be “the last straw”
• Nearly half of Russia’s oil refining capacity is shut down: Ukrainian drones cause $13.5 billion in industry losses
• Trump advises Ukraine to “declare victory” — and stop halfway