Trump says it is time for Ukraine to 'get a new president' as his Russian diesel deal splits the West

President Donald Trump tore into Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday outside the White House, saying it was time for Ukraine to "get a new president" and accusing the Ukrainian leader of driving up fuel prices by striking Russian refineries after Trump asked him to stop.

"I said to him: do what you want, don't hit refineries," Trump told reporters as he left for a midterm rally in Tennessee. "He'd better damned well stop. I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal." Trump said Ukraine had lost 30 percent of its country and suffered more than a million dead and wounded, arguing Zelensky could have settled the war many times and chose not to.

The rupture comes one day after Trump announced a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel immediately, followed by 500,000 tons in November, another 1 million tons immediately after that, and 3 million more within a short period. Trump presented it as an answer to American diesel prices topping 6 dollars a gallon, a cost hitting farmers and truckers ahead of the midterms. Zelensky called the arrangement a gift to Putin that would help bankroll the war against his country.

America's allies would not follow. Britain rallied behind Zelensky, and Prime Minister Andy Burnham spoke with the Ukrainian president on Saturday, reiterating complete solidarity and agreeing to meet in the coming days. London made clear it would keep its toughest sanctions regime ever on Russia and would not buy Kremlin diesel.

The clash is a striking reversal of years of American pressure on Moscow over the invasion. As the Associated Press noted, it came only weeks after Trump signed a sweeping sanctions law aimed at choking off the oil and gas revenue that fuels Russia's war.