Donald Trump hits back at ‘terrible’ Volodymyr Zelenskyy and calls him a ‘dictator’ amid US-Russia talks
Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelenskyy “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left” as peace talks between the US and Russia continue – without Ukraine at the table.
Officials from the White House and the Kremlin have this week begun holding discussions in Saudi Arabia.
The decision for the talks to take place without representatives from Kyiv or Europe has caused concern, and sparked an emergency meeting of European leaders in France earlier this week.
Mr Trump’s latest comments – in which he also calls Mr Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” – come after the Ukrainian president accused him of living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” as a result of his administration’s discussions with Kremlin officials.
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Trump living in ‘disinformation space’
Ukraine latest: Follow updates as Putin makes peace talks claim
In a post on his social media platform TruthSocial, the US president said Mr Zelenskyy had “talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion dollars, to go into a war that couldn’t be won, that never had to start”.
“The only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle’,” he added.
Mr Trump continued: “Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a country left.
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do.
“Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going.”
“I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues,” he wrote.
Mr Trump later repeated his comments in a rambling speech to a Saudi-run investment forum in Miami.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. Pic: Reuters
Top end estimates suggest hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have died in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Millions of Ukrainians have fled their country as refugees.
Mr Trump also repeated his claim that the Ukrainian president has low approval ratings – which has already been dismissed by Mr Zelenskyy as Russian disinformation – and claimed American aid money had been misused.
The latest poll, carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in early February, found 57% of Ukrainians trust their leader.
Ukraine’s general election, scheduled for April 2024, were delayed because of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
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Trump, Zelenskyy and Putin: Who said what?
Speaking after Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Zelenskyy called for pragmatism from the US.
He said in his nightly address: “We are standing strong on our own two feet. I am counting on Ukrainian unity, our courage… on the unity of Europe and the pragmatism of America.”
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the US president labelling Mr Zelenskyy a “dictator” is “false and dangerous”, German newspaper Spiegel reported.
“It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy his democratic legitimacy,” Mr Scholz said.
Putin: ‘No one is excluding Ukraine from talks’
Mr Trump’s latest post comes after Vladimir Putin insisted Kyiv could have a seat at the negotiating table.
The Russian president said earlier on Wednesday: “No one is excluding Ukraine from peace talks.”
“We are ready, I have already said this a hundred times – if they want, please let these negotiations take place and we will be ready to return to the table,” he said.
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Analysis: Ukraine is fighting war on two fronts
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Putin says America is ‘open to negotiation’
Referencing Mr Zelenskyy’s 2022 decree that rejected talks with Moscow, he added: “The Europeans have stopped contacts with Russia. The Ukrainian side has forbidden itself to negotiate.”
According to the Russian leader, the “goal and subject” of Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia “was the restoration of Russia-US relations”.
Mr Zelenskyy is expected to meet later with Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, who arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday.
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Russia launches assault on Odesa
Overnight, Russian forces launched a drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa, injuring four people including a child, Mr Zelenskyy said.
At least 160,000 people were left without heating in sub-zero temperatures, he added.
Residents stand at the site of an Odesa clinic hit by the strike. Pic: Reuters
“Rescue operations are under way in Odesa after another Russian attack on the energy infrastructure,” Mr Zelenskyy said on the Telegram app.
“It is civilian energy facilities against which the Russian army has not spared neither missiles nor attack drones for almost three years.”
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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