The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill Dmitriev hinted at a political “end of game“ for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after Donald Trump said Ukraine needs a new leader.
In a post on the social network X, Dmitriev shared an image of a cover of the American TIME magazine, which features Zelensky, and the title reads The Endgame – “The Endgame“ or “The Final Stage“. The cover is not new: it is from the international issue of the magazine dated April 14, 2025.
Earlier, Trump said that “it is time for Ukraine to get a new president“. "I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal, because he could make a lot of deals, but for some reason he never does," the US president said, quoted by the Associated Press.
The statement was made against the backdrop of Trump's criticism of Zelensky for his refusal to end the conflict with Russia and for Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. The US president also linked the topic to the rise in the price of diesel fuel in the United States, the Associated Press points out.
How Kirill Dmitriev reacted
Dmitriev described Trump's words as "signature and historic". In another post, he wrote that the US president joins those who believe that Ukraine needs leadership that is “truly oriented towards peace“, and not towards continuing the war.
The Russian representative then published the cover of TIME, making a direct political reference to Zelensky's future.
The title The Endgame was used by TIME for a material devoted to Zelensky's positions on Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the possible end of the war. In the interview, published in March 2025, the Ukrainian president spoke about the difficult diplomatic process and the conditions under which Kiev could accept an agreement.
Sources: apnews.com, time.com, corrierealpi.it