Donald Trump has told Ukraine it should replace President Volodymyr Zelensky with a new leader willing to negotiate with Moscow, and his envoys have warned Kyiv that Washington could cut off intelligence sharing and weapons procurement if Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries continue. The threats, delivered over a turbulent weekend, have plunged US-Ukraine relations into their deepest crisis since last year's Oval Office confrontation and alarmed European allies.
The president's remarks were reported by Axios on Saturday. According to the outlet, Trump suggested it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, arguing that Zelensky had repeatedly refused to make deals to end the fighting. The comments came roughly 24 hours after Trump lifted sanctions to let Russian diesel flow into American markets under an arrangement struck with Vladimir Putin.
Trump paired the demand with two conditions aimed at Kyiv: an end to Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, and acceptance of what his administration has described as an energy ceasefire. Fox News reported that Trump argued those attacks were tightening worldwide diesel and fuel supplies at a time when prices at American pumps remain punishingly high.
The intelligence-sharing threat
The most consequential warning was delivered behind closed doors in Miami, where US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Ukrainian negotiators. According to Axios, the envoys warned that Washington could suspend intelligence sharing if Kyiv does not halt its deep strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. A US official disputed that an explicit threat was issued but said the envoys conveyed that Washington expected reciprocity given American deliveries of ammunition and intelligence.
The message reportedly extended to PURL, the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List mechanism through which allies procure American weapons for Ukraine. A European official told CNN that NATO had not yet seen any change to the PURL programme over the weekend, but the threat alone has rattled Kyiv.
The stakes could hardly be higher. American intelligence helps Ukraine defend against Russian ballistic missile attacks by identifying launcher locations and tracking incoming strikes. Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of Ukraine's parliamentary foreign affairs committee, acknowledged that a cut-off would blind Ukraine's air defences, calling it an act of complicity with Putin that would mean more dead civilians and children. Suspending weapons purchases would most damagingly hit shipments of Patriot interceptor missiles, which Ukraine is already desperately short of as Russia has expanded its missile and drone attacks.
A precedent that unnerves Kyiv
This is not the first time Washington has wielded intelligence as leverage. The Trump administration suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March 2025 following the contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelensky, restoring it only after Ukraine accepted a proposed American ceasefire following talks in Saudi Arabia. Kyiv knows the threat is credible because it has lived through it.
A US official told Axios that Trump decided to strike the diesel deal with Russia after Zelensky ignored roughly half a dozen American requests to stop attacking Russian refineries. Ukrainian officials had proposed suspending the refinery strikes if Moscow stopped hitting Ukraine's grid and heating plants, but Trump wanted a unilateral halt and did not see the two campaigns as equivalent. The official said the refinery attacks cause pain in Russia but pain for the United States as well, and accused Zelensky of misreading the room.
Zelensky pushes back
Ukraine's president has refused to bend. Responding to Trump's demand for a leadership change, Zelensky said it was up to Ukrainians to choose one leader or another. He told ABC News he was willing to accept Trump's demands and even organise elections, but only if Putin agreed to a total 60-day ceasefire, a condition Moscow has shown no sign of meeting.
On the refinery strikes, Zelensky insisted any halt must be reciprocal. Moscow, he said, has to stop its own brutal attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure first. He described the diesel deal as unfair and warned it would generate billions in extra revenue for Putin, enabling him to prosecute the war even more intensely.
