WASHINGTON ― Seven years after trying to extort Ukraine into helping him with his own reelection campaign, President Donald Trump appears to be at it again, pressuring Ukraine to stop fighting against Russia’s bloody nightly attacks targeting civilians in order to help Republicans in the coming midterms.

“I think I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” he told reporters Saturday after lashing out at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for having attacked Russia’s oil infrastructure. “Zelenskyy could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to.”

The pressure campaign, alongside a deal Trump cut with Russia to import diesel, is intended to help vulnerable Republicans whose standing has been battered by high fuel costs.

Yet the political Hail Mary, beyond giving morally fraught assistance to a Russian dictator waging a war of conquest which has killed tens of thousands of civilians, also appears unlikely to meaningfully lower fuel costs ― a combination that has drawn condemnation from the very Republicans it is intended to help.

“We need to lower diesel prices, but I don’t think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it,” Iowa Republican congresswoman Ashley Hinson, who is running in a tight race for Senate in the typically red state, said at a debate Tuesday night. Former Rep. Mike Rogers, the GOP nominee for Senate in Michigan, similarly said he opposed the diesel deal.

Trump’s anti-Ukraine efforts have now gone beyond mere angry statements. Zelenskyy on Wednesday told NPR that his military leaders had been told by Trump administration officials that the U.S. would stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine unless it ended its attacks on Russian refineries.

And this week, the Starlink-based navigation system Ukraine had been using to shoot down Russian drones was suddenly switched off. Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk, whose SpaceX operates the Starlink satellites used by the “Starshield” defense system, put the blame squarely on the Trump administration and Trump personally.

“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” wrote Musk, a Trump ally who has donated more than a quarter-billion dollars to help Republicans in the midterm elections.

Trump’s White House did not respond to HuffPost queries about Trump’s favoring of Russia’s Vladimir Putin despite his continued strikes against Ukrainian apartment blocks and other civilian targets, including power plants.

His insistence that Ukraine take actions that would endanger its very existence as an independent nation for the stated purpose of lowering diesel prices goes well beyond his 2019 demand that Zelenskyy investigate then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as a condition of receiving congressionally approved military aid. In 2019, while Russia was conducting low-level attacks in the eastern Donbas region, Putin was still three years away from the full-scale assault and invasion he launched in 2022.

“It is the same use of governmental authority for purely political purposes,” said John Bolton, a first-term national security adviser to Trump who, like many Trump critics, has in the second term been prosecuted by Trump’s Department of Justice.

Robert Kagan, who served in the State Department in the Ronald Reagan presidency and is now with the Brookings Institution, said Trump’s sudden swing to help Putin and hurt Ukraine carry ramifications far beyond that conflict.

“The United States doesn’t have a foreign policy now. The United States today is a predatory criminal enterprise,” Kagan said. “Our allies need to wake up to that reality quickly.”

Repeatedly in recent days, Trump has ― falsely ― blamed Zelenskyy for the spike in diesel fuel prices. In reality, experts say, the near $7 per gallon diesel is the result of Trump’s own war against Iran, which has increased oil, gasoline, diesel and other fuel prices all over the world.

Despite this, and facing anger from truckers and farmers whose livelihoods in traditionally Republican states are getting squeezed with the midterm elections just weeks away, Trump has demanded that Ukraine stop hitting Russian refineries and instead accept a “deal” that would reward Putin in his nearly 5-year-old war.

“He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers with, uh, diesel fuel, because Russia supplies a large portion of the diesel fuel throughout the world,” Trump said of Zelenskyy Saturday.

A separate deal Trump announced in a social media post on Friday would effectively lift sanctions on Russia to let it sell diesel fuel to the U.S.

“Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST! Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority,” Trump wrote.

The purported agreement, which on its face runs afoul of a 2022 law that bans such imports, has been criticized both by members of Congress, including Republicans, as well as U.S. allies in Europe as a betrayal of Ukraine and a foolish embrace of a murderous dictator.

“The outcome of this decision is doubtful, while the risks are clear: legitimizing Moscow while its bombs continue to fall on Ukrainian cities, financing its war, and weakening sanctions,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Wednesday in a speech to her country’s Senate.

In any case, oil industry experts said the agreement to let Russia sell its diesel to the west would not bring meaningful relief to those who rely on it.

“Five cents off diesel,” said Dan Eberhart, owner of the oil services company Canary LLC and a Republican donor. “Too little, too late.”

Matt Randolph, who similarly has decades of experience in the industry, said the 5 cents per gallon estimate was too generous.

“Zero,” he said. “It adds zero diesel to the global market. Moving diesel from one place to another doesn’t change the price. Only increasing supply or lowering demand does that.”

Trump’s 2019 extortion attempt was stymied when a whistleblower in his own administration filed a complaint. A congressional investigation by the Democratic House led to an impeachment, but the GOP-controlled Senate chose not to remove Trump from office.

Colorado Democratic congressman Jason Crow, who was one of the House prosecutors in that impeachment, said Trump’s kowtowing to Putin would hurt not just Ukraine, but America.

“Donald Trump’s war of choice with Iran is the reason gas prices are near all-time highs. The president’s policies will do little to lower costs but do everything to cozy up to autocrats like Putin,” Crow said. “By easing sanctions on Russia, he’s prolonging war and suffering of civilians, and making the American people less safe.”

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.