DOONBEG, Ireland — President Donald Trump on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, told reporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should stop striking Russian diesel infrastructure, arguing the campaign is driving a fuel shortage that is “hurting the world,” Reuters and the Associated Press reported.

Trump spoke on the sidelines of the Irish Open at his Doonbeg golf club. Asked whether he had spoken with Zelenskyy after his recent conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, he pivoted to the refinery campaign:

“Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump said. “Let him go after targets but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel fuel.”

To Reuters he added that Washington had raised the issue: “We spoke to Mr. Zelenskyy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel. That’s hurting the world.” He also said the global diesel crunch “isn’t done by the Middle East, this is done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.”

Record U.S. diesel — and a war that already squeezed supply

The U.S. national average diesel price climbed past $6 a gallon for the first time on Thursday, according to GasBuddy, Reuters reported — a pocketbook number that lands weeks before the November midterms. AP noted the Friday record and the squeeze on trucking, rail, shipping, and farm equipment.

Ukraine has for months hit Russian oil and gas sites with long-range drones. Kyiv says those refineries both fund and fuel Russia’s invasion. The campaign has forced fuel rationing inside Russia and contributed to Moscow’s July ban on diesel exports — one factor in the global squeeze, even as the Iran war also curtailed shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, AP reported.

Overnight into Sunday, the exchanges continued: Ukrainian authorities reported Russian strikes on Odesa and a fire near the Yahodyn–Dorohusk border crossing with Poland; Russian officials said two people were killed and 14 injured near an oil and industrial hub in Tatarstan’s Nizhnekamsk, and Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence claimed a hit on a Krasnodar-region refinery at Slavyansk-on-Kuban.

Dated Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, from Doonbeg: Trump tells Zelenskyy to spare Russian diesel as U.S. pump prices sit at a record.

Sources