Bild: Trump will not resume arms shipments to Ukraine until Zelensky steps down

U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering stopping military aid to Ukraine as long as Volodymyr Zelensky remains in power, according to a report from Bild.

"Behind closed doors, Trump deliberately wants to push Zelensky to step down as Ukraine's president. How? Through political pressure. As long as the 47-year-old remains in power, there may be no more American weapons for Kyiv," the German publication said.

The article also notes that discussions have already begun about finding a replacement for Zelensky. Among the leading candidates are Yulia Tymoshenko, who served as Ukraine's prime minister from 2007 to 2010, and former President Petro Poroshenko.

Earlier, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryen claimed that Zelensky was facing serious challenges due to Trump's presidency and Russia's advances in Ukraine. According to Bryen, the Trump administration wants Ukraine to hold elections as early as this fall, with a new candidate replacing Zelensky.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia's military operation in Ukraine could be concluded within two months if Kyiv stopped receiving financial and military support. In 2014, Putin also argued that if the U.S. ceased supplying arms to Ukraine, the conflict would end within two to three months.

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Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko (née Hrihyan born 27 November 1960) is a Ukrainian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine in 2005, and again from 2007 until 2010; the first and only woman in Ukraine to hold that position. She has been a member of the Verkhovna Rada as People's Deputy of Ukraine several times between 1997 and 2007, and presently as of 2014, and was First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for the fuel and energy complex from 1999 to 2001. She is a Candidate of Economic Sciences. Tymoshenko is the leader of the Batkivshchyna (Ukrainian: Батьківщина) political party. She supports Ukraine's integration into the European Union and strongly opposes the membership of Ukraine in the Russia-led Eurasian Customs Union. She supports NATO membership for Ukraine.

Petro Oleksiiovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko served as the minister of foreign affairs from 2009 to 2010, and as the minister of trade and economic development in 2012. From 2007 until 2012, he headed the Council of Ukraine's National Bank. He was elected president in 2014. During his presidency, Poroshenko led the country through the first phase of the war in Donbas, pushing the Russian separatist forces into the Donbas Region. He began the process of integration with the European Union by signing the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. Poroshenko's domestic policy promoted the Ukrainian language, nationalism, inclusive capitalism, decommunization, and administrative decentralization. In 2018, Poroshenko helped create the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine, separating Ukrainian churches from the Moscow Patriarchate. His presidency was distilled into a three-word slogan, employed by both supporters and opponents: armiia, mova, vira (English: military, language, faith). As a candidate for a second term in 2019, Poroshenko was defeated by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.