Russian aerial bombs killed at least 17 people in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on Saturday — including three children — just one day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel that Kyiv warns will bankroll Moscow's war machine.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service said Russian glide bombs hit residential buildings on Saturday morning. At least 16 more people were wounded. Missiles also struck Kyiv in a rare daytime attack, wounding four, according to Mayor Vitalii Klitschko.
The strikes cap a brutal stretch: Ukrainian officials say escalating Russian bombardments have killed more than 60 people over the past four days, including at least 33 in Kramatorsk on Thursday.
Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies stay largely deadlocked on the front line — more than four and a half years into Moscow's full-scale invasion.
Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Trump said it was time for Ukraine to get a new president, arguing Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war.
"I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal," Trump said, adding that "for some reason [Zelenskyy] never does."
Trump claimed that had he been president in 2022, "that war would have never started," and blamed Zelenskyy for high U.S. diesel prices at home. The remarks, reported by CBC News and The Associated Press, mark his sharpest personal break with the Ukrainian leader yet.
On Friday, Trump announced Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, one million tons after that — and three million more tons "within a short period of time." The move reverses years of U.S. pressure on Moscow and undercuts a sweeping Russia sanctions law Trump himself signed last month targeting oil and gas revenues.
Zelenskyy's response was blistering. Writing on X, he said:
"Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia."
He warned every extra billion dollars Moscow earns pays for weapons components, drone upgrades, missile production and mercenary recruitment — and that easing pressure signals "it is apparently permissible to continue attacking."
The announcement landed as Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Ukrainian officials in Miami to discuss a proposal to end the war. Zelenskyy said his team felt used as "a smoke screen," adding: "that is certainly not how partners should treat each other."
Ukraine's European partners reacted with open dismay. Sweden's prime minister said energy revenues are "central to the Russian war chest" and pointed to the EU's most comprehensive sanctions package yet, arriving Monday with 1,600 listings against Russia's military-industrial complex. Germany said support for Ukraine "remains unwavering." Poland questioned whether Russia — reportedly facing fuel shortages even in Moscow, with roughly half its refining capacity damaged — can deliver the promised diesel at all.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned this week the war is reaching a dangerous stalemate that could escalate into a broader regional conflict involving NATO countries.
This isn't distant news for the 6ix. Canada is home to one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas in the world, with its beating heart in Toronto — families here spent Saturday checking phones for names from home.
There's a second lens, too. Haitian-born artists like Young Hadene know exactly what it looks like when a homeland bends under crisis while the world debates what to do about it. Displacement, phone calls that don't get answered, watching leaders trade statements while neighbourhoods bury their dead — that grief translates across every language.
And there's a street-level economy to it. When diesel prices spike, everything an independent artist touches gets more expensive: touring vans, merch shipments, studio runs across the city. The same fuel shock Trump says he's solving with Russian diesel is the one squeezing underground artists trying to move units without a major-label budget.
Sources: CBC News, The Associated Press. This article summarizes their October 10, 2026 reporting with Toronto context from the Young Hadene newsroom.
Trump said Ukraine should get a new president, claiming Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia.
Trump announced Russia will supply 300,000+ tons of diesel immediately, with millions more tons to follow — reversing U.S. sanctions pressure on Moscow.
At least 17 people, including three children, with at least 16 wounded, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service.
Toronto holds one of the world's largest Ukrainian diasporas, and fuel shocks hit independent artists' touring and merch costs directly.