President Donald Trump took aim at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, saying he is “not a big fan” of the Ukrainian leader and finds him harder to deal with than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump made the comments during an interview with Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty as Ukraine resumed strikes on Russian energy targets, with Kyiv arguing that Moscow’s attacks had never stopped.
“I thought you asked President Zelensky not to do that,” Finnerty said.
“I did,” Trump replied. “Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with.”
Finnerty then asked the president whether he had lost faith in the Ukrainian leader.
“I think they’re gonna end up with a settlement of some kind,” Trump said. “They’re not gonna do it with him. He doesn’t wanna settle. He says he wants to settle, but he doesn’t. No, I’m not a big fan of Zelensky. They’ve destroyed that country.”
The president also placed part of the blame for the war on former President Barack Obama, pointing to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which happened while Obama was in office.
“If the U.S. election weren’t rigged,” Trump claimed, “that war would have never happened. That’s the saddest part… Ukraine has lost so many of its men, and Russia, too, but Russia’s a massive country.”
Asked by Finnerty whether the war would end before he leaves office, Trump expressed optimism.
“It should end soon,” the president said. “I think they actually both would like to see it end, but I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.”
The interview capped a turbulent stretch in Trump’s handling of the conflict.
Just last week, the president made the surprise announcement that Putin had agreed to bail out the U.S. diesel market as the ongoing war in Iran continues to push fuel prices higher for Americans.
The announcement came shortly after Trump signed legislation restricting U.S. business dealings with Russia. However, the Treasury Department formally lifted the relevant sanctions on the same day the president announced the deal.
Two days later, Trump claimed that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire.” Zelensky said the news came as a surprise to him. Just hours after Trump’s announcement, Putin launched an attack on a power plant in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has been ongoing since February 2022.
Zelensky, for his part, has made clear he is unhappy with the president’s diesel deal with Putin.
During an interview Wednesday with Piers Morgan, Zelensky said yes when asked whether he feels “betrayed” by the agreement. He added that he considers it a “pity” to be losing a “strong partner” in the U.S. and said doing business with the Russian president is the “not right side of history.”
The back-and-forth highlights the growing tension between Washington and Kyiv. While Trump insists both sides want the war to end, his latest remarks make clear he sees Zelensky, not Putin, as the bigger obstacle to a deal.
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