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U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must stop striking Russian diesel refineries, warning the attacks are causing global fuel shortages, as he also weighed in on Monday's planned Gulf-Iran talks and reiterated his prediction for when the Iran war will end.
"Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia," Trump told reporters during his visit to Ireland.
"Let him go after targets, but not diesel, because he's causing a shortage of diesel," he added.
Trump said current disruptions in diesel markets stem from the Russia-Ukraine war rather than Middle East tensions.
"This isn't done by the Middle East; this is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine," he said, adding that Washington had raised the issue directly with Zelenskyy and that Ukrainian forces have "plenty of other targets" available without hitting refineries, arguing the strikes are "hurting the world."
Ukrainian officials did not immediately respond to Trump's comments.
Asked about Monday's planned meeting between Gulf nations and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump, speaking at his golf resort in Doonbeg, said it was "up to them" whether to hold the talks.
"I don't care. That's up to them. We'll ultimately get out. Unless we decide to stay and keep the oil! Like Venezuela," Trump said.
The U.S. president also repeated his forecast that the Iran war would conclude around the November midterm elections.
"Look, it could end before the midterms, but it'll end after the midterms," he said, predicting gasoline prices would "drop like a rock" once the conflict ends.
Trump claimed Iranian officials are "calling constantly" seeking an agreement, though he said his administration would only accept favorable terms. "I'm not going to make a deal that's no good," he said, reiterating that Iran "cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won't have a nuclear weapon."
Trump's comments on Ukraine came amid ongoing efforts to schedule new talks aimed at ending Russia's war, following a weekend visit by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv.
In a Deutsche Welle (DW) interview on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he would travel to Miami for Trump's G20 summit in mid-December if Vladimir Putin also attended.
Zelenskyy separately said in Canada that new meetings with U.S. envoys could be held in New York later this month, around the UN General Assembly's general debate, while Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's presidential office, said a new round of trilateral talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. could come in October.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, accompanying Putin at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, told Izvestia that a number of issues must be resolved before any trilateral meeting, calling the "territorial issue" key to progress.
Putin has insisted Ukraine surrender the remainder of its eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal, a demand Ukraine has repeatedly rejected.
"I would say the demands remain the same; there has been no tightening. We would simply like them to be met sooner or later, preferably sooner," Ushakov told Russian state TV.
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