An audience laughed at President Donald Trump during a European summit after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy answered a question about Trump’s midterm troubles with only a smile.
The exchange closed Zelenskyy’s press conference Friday at the European Council summit in Brussels after Sky News Europe correspondent Alistair Bunkall asked him the question.
“President Trump is facing pretty difficult midterm elections. His personal popularity is very low. Diesel prices in the U.S. are very high. And the war that he started in the Middle East is not going the way he wants it,” Bunkall said.
“Do you think you are being treated as a scapegoat for his own problems?” Bunkall asked.
Zelenskyy paused for about eight seconds, looked down at his podium and then smiled at the audience.
The room broke into laughter as Zelenskyy opened his hand toward the crowd, the video shows.
“This is my answer,” Zelenskyy said.
The reply drew a second wave of laughter, according to the video.
“Thank you so much,” Bunkall said.
Al Jazeera reported that the question came a week after Trump struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to buy diesel, then blamed Zelenskyy’s strikes on Russian oil refineries for high U.S. diesel prices.
“I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” Trump told reporters at the White House the next day, the outlet reported.
“He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel,” Trump said, according to Euronews.
Euronews reported that Trump puts the blame for diesel prices solely on Zelenskyy, but the refinery strikes are part of Ukraine’s defense against the invasion Russia launched in 2022.
Ukrainian drones were striking Russian refineries months before the Iran war, hitting two major plants in a single night in August 2025, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
U.S. diesel prices surged after Trump launched his war with Iran on Feb. 28, rising from $3.81 a gallon to $6.19 by early October, according to Energy Information Administration figures cited in an Al Jazeera analysis. The analysis found that those figures show the war in Ukraine changed prices little.
The spike has become a political liability for Republicans ahead of next month’s midterm elections, Al Jazeera reported.
“Prices are rising because of the war in the Middle East, the blocking of Hormuz,” Zelenskyy told ABC News the day after Trump called for his replacement, according to Mother Jones.
Tensions spread to Ukraine’s military internet Wednesday, when a Zelenskyy adviser said SpaceX had slowed Starlink satellite service on moving terminals without warning Ukraine’s forces, CNBC reported.
“Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military, and ultimately POTUS [the president],” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X about Starshield, the military version of Starlink, the outlet noted.
SpaceX began restoring Starlink speeds that day, CNBC reported, even though Musk insisted his company had nothing to do with the limits.
“I am sure they knew what they did, absolutely,” Zelenskyy told British journalist Piers Morgan that day, referring to Trump and Musk.
“I’ll be frank—this was a very unpleasant and dangerous surprise regarding the ‘Starlink’ satellites,” Zelenskyy said when asked about it again at Friday’s press conference.
Trump kept up his criticism Thursday, a day before the press conference, calling Ukraine’s renewed refinery strikes a “disgrace” after Kyiv dropped his energy ceasefire.
“I think I find Zelenskyy to be more difficult to deal with than Putin,” Trump told Newsmax.