Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said US President Donald Trump has the means to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiations but has not used them. On The Diary of a CEO podcast, Zelensky said Trump “could very easily bring Putin to the negotiating table, because he has the means to do so,” and argued that Trump should speak about Putin in the same way he speaks about him.
Zelensky pointed to sanctions approved by the US Congress as one available tool. “Sanctions are sitting on his desk. He didn’t vote for them – Congress voted for strong sanctions. He has the power to act,” he said. Asked why Trump had not acted, Zelensky said he could only speculate, including about a special relationship between Kremlin and US administration leaders or possible economic deals. He added that secrets around the war would eventually come to light and that time favoured those open to honest dialogue.
The host suggested Trump might be more concerned about domestic energy prices before the US midterm elections than about Ukraine. Zelensky rejected the idea that American fuel prices depend on how much Russian energy is sold. “I can tell you with 100% certainty that diesel prices do not depend on the volumes Russia sells,” he said, arguing that the United States exports its own energy resources and that American companies do the exporting. He said he saw little reason for Trump to restrict private companies that were making money from those sales.
Asked about Trump’s repeated claim that Russia would not have launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine had Trump been president, Zelensky said nobody knows the answer. He said the invasion happened during Biden’s presidency and did not happen under Trump, but that Putin chose the moment for a full-scale occupation. He acknowledged that Trump’s relationship with Putin might have influenced the Russian leader’s decision-making, while arguing that personal ties between presidents would not resolve the threat to Ukraine. Putin, he said, would continue pursuing the occupation of Ukraine regardless of who held the US presidency, because neither he nor Trump would remain president forever.
Zelensky warned that surrendering Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region could open the way for further Russian advances toward Dnipropetrovsk region, including Pavlohrad and Dnipro. He described the area as a key industrial and machine-building hub whose defences had been heavily fortified. “If we surrender these cities of ours to them, the risk is enormous,” he said, adding that there were no guarantees Russia would stop. He questioned what security guarantees would mean if Ukraine were required to withdraw from more territory, and called such a withdrawal unjust.
He estimated that Russia currently controls approximately 18-19% of Ukrainian territory. He said Moscow presents different maps to its domestic audience and continues to pursue objectives beyond the areas it occupies. According to Zelensky, Russia wants to capture Zaporizhzhia but has been unable to do so, and both Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv remain targets even if Moscow does not explicitly acknowledge those ambitions. In Kherson, he said, the Dnipro River divides the city, with Ukrainian-held territory on one bank and Russian forces on the other, allowing Russian troops to shell the city.
Zelensky said Trump had repeatedly urged both sides to seek a compromise, but argued that Ukraine was already making a significant concession by agreeing to stop fighting along the current front line. “The biggest compromise we are already making is a ceasefire. Let’s just stop this war,” he said. He added that he had repeatedly urged Trump to understand that simply holding the lines where they are is a huge compromise.