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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
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.
Image: 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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:47
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.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:54
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.
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
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.
Image: 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.”
Buckingham Palace previously only said the visit would happen “when diaries allow”, but Mr Trump told reporters on Thursday: “I think they are setting a date for September.”
“I don’t know how it can be bigger than the last one,” he said.
“The last one was incredible, but they say the next one will be even more important.”
Image: Sir Keir Starmer handed Trump the invite earlier this year. Pic: PA
Mr Trump will become the only elected political leader in modern times to be invited to two state visits by a British monarch.
The president called the UK a “great country” in his comments at the White House on Thursday and said it was “an honour to be a friend of King Charles and the family, William”.
His first state visit was in 2019, when he was hosted by the late Queen.
Second-term US presidents who have already made a state visit usually get tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.
Image: The president was hosted by the Queen in June 2019. Pic: Reuters
But Mr Trump is set to get all the pomp and ceremony laid on again in his honour – with another state banquet likely at Buckingham Palace.
The Royal Family‘s soft power diplomacy is viewed as a way of currying favour with the president, who’s known for his love of the monarchy and links to the UK through his mother, who was born on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.
It comes as the government seeks an economic deal with the US, in the hope of potentially lessening the impact of the president’s tariffs.
Four people are in hospital as police deal with an active shooter on a university campus in Florida.
Videos showed people running through traffic, fleeing the scene, around the time of the shooting at the student union at Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee.
Local police were “on the scene or on the way”, according to an alert sent out by the school and students have been told to “shelter in place”.
The FBI is also said to be responding to the incident.
Image: Florida State University students wait for news amid an active shooter incident at the school.
Pic: AP/Kate Payne
In a statement, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said it was “actively receiving and caring for patients” from the incident.
“At this time, details are still unfolding, and we do not yet have specific information to share. However, we want to assure the community that our teams are fully mobilised and prepared to provide the highest level of care and support to all those affected,” it added.
President Donald Trump said he was fully briefed on the incident and described it as “a shame”.
More on Florida
Related Topics:
He added: “It’s a horrible thing. Horrible that things like this take place.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, in a statement posted on X, said: “Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding.”
Ambulances, fire trucks and police vehicles raced to the campus around midday local time (5pm UK time) on Thursday.
As students streamed away from the area of the student union in their hundreds, some were visibly emotional and others were glued to their phones.
Dozens later gathered near the university’s music school, waiting for news.
Florida State University student Daniella Streety told NBC News of the chaos that unfolded at the scene.
She remained on lockdown in a campus building and said: “I did see them carry out one student in what looked like on a stretcher and kept them in the road until an ambulance was able to pick them up.”
Joshua Sirmans, 20, was in the university’s main library when he said alarms began going off warning of an active shooter.
Police escorted him and other students out of the library with their hands over their heads, he said.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
A US federal judge has warned that he could hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.
US District Judge James E. Boasberg said he had found “probable cause” to hold the administration in criminal contempt and warned he could refer the matter for prosecution if it does not “purge” its contempt.
If the government doesn’t purge the contempt, charges could be brought forward by the Justice Department, NBC News reported.
And if the executive-led Justice Department refused to prosecute the matter, Judge Boasberg said he would appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt.
Mr Boasberg said the administration could “purge contempt by returning those who were sent to El Salvador prison, in violation of his order, to the US.
This, he said, “might avail themselves of their right to challenge their removability”.
“The Constitution does not tolerate wilful disobedience of judicial orders – especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” the judge wrote.
Executive vs judicial
This marks a notable escalation in the ongoing tensions between the judicial and executive branches of the US government during Donald Trump’s second term.
Parts of the US president’s legislative programme have been halted by judges, as the administration strains against the restraints of the separation of powers.
Mr Trump previously called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached while the Justice Department claimed he overstepped his authority – both reflecting the administration’s attempts to overcome perceived obstacles to the implementation of its agenda.
Mr Trump’s administration has also argued it did not violate any orders.
It claimed the judge didn’t include a turnaround directive in his written order and said the planes had already left the US by the time the order came down.
‘Administrative error’
At the heart of the legal wrangling is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Washington acknowledged that Mr Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”.
The US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return, upholding a court order by Judge Paula Xinis, but Trump officials have claimed that Mr Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang.
Image: Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: CASA/AP
Mr Garcia’s lawyers have argued there is no evidence of this.
This all comes after El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele visited the White House earlier this week.
During his time with Mr Trump, Mr Bukele said that he would not return Mr Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”
Image: The US and El Salvador presidents in the Oval Office.
Pic: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Along with Mr Garcia, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, whom it claims are gang members without presenting evidence and without a trial.
Democrat senator travels to El Salvador
Meanwhile, Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday, saying he would seek a meeting with the country’s officials to secure Mr Garcia’s release.
“I just arrived in San Salvador a little while ago and look forward to meeting with the US embassy team to discuss Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release,” Mr Van Hollen said on social media.
X
This content is provided by X, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable X cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to X cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow X cookies for this session only.