U.S. President Donald Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “a dictator without elections” on Wednesday and said he had better move fast to secure peace or he would have no country left.
Trump spoke hours after Zelenskiy hit back at his suggestion that Ukraine was responsible for Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, saying the U.S. president was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble.
“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on social media, using a different spelling for the Ukrainian president’s name.
In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said no one could force his country to give in. “We will defend our right to exist,” Sybiha said on X.
Zelenskiy’s five-year term was supposed to end in 2024 but presidential and parliamentary elections cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022 in response to Russia’s invasion.
Russia has seized some 20% of Ukraine and it is slowly but steadily gaining more territory in the east. Moscow said its “special military operation” responded to an existential threat posed by Kyiv’s pursuit of NATO membership. Ukraine and the West call Russia’s action an imperialist land grab.
Zelenskiy, who met Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Wednesday, said he would like Trump’s team to have “more truth” about Ukraine, a day after Trump said Ukraine “should never have started” the conflict with Russia.
The Ukrainian leader said Trump’s assertion that his approval rating was just 4% was Russian disinformation and that any attempt to replace him would fail.
“We have evidence that these figures are being discussed between America and Russia. That is, President Trump … unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelenskiy told Ukrainian TV.
The latest poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, from early February, says 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelenskiy.
Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended U.S. policy on Ukraine and Russia, ending Washington’s bid to isolate Russia over the invasion with a Trump-Putin phone call and talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials.
Following Trump’s latest remarks, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Zelenskiy “sits in office after duly-held elections.” When asked who started the war, Dujarric responded that Russia had invaded Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “false and dangerous” for Trump to call Zelenskiy a dictator, German newspaper Spiegel reported.
European officials have been left shocked and flat-footed by the Trump administration’s moves on Ukraine in recent days.
At a second meeting of European leaders in Paris, hastily arranged by French President Emmanuel Macron earlier in the day, there were more calls for immediate action to support Ukraine and bolster Europe’s defense capabilities, but few concrete decisions.
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