BBC News
President Trump spent the day attacking the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him “dictator” and deepened the fault between the two leaders.
His attacks occurred after Zelensky, reacting to the American-Russian talks in Saudi Arabia from which kyiv was excluded, said that the American president “lived in a disinformation space” governed by Moscow.
Speaking at an investment meeting supported by Saudi Arabia in Florida, Trump said that the only thing Zelensky was really good was to play Joe Biden as a violin. “
The “dictator” insult quickly caused criticism of European leaders, notably the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said “it is simply false and dangerous to refuse President Zelensky his democratic legitimacy”.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer It is clear that he supported Zelensky in a telephone call to the Ukrainian president.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Sir Keir “expressed support to President Zelensky as a democratically elected leader in Ukraine.”
It was “perfectly reasonable to suspend the elections during the war like the United Kingdom during the Second World War,” added the spokesperson.
On Thursday, Zelensky is due to meet the American envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. He said it was crucial that discussion – and global cooperation with the United States – remain constructive.
In an article on social networks, Zelensky said peace could be safer with the United States and Europe.
Zelensky’s five -year term had to end in May 2024. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia launched its large -scale invasion in February 2022 and the elections were suspended.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf KrisSson also criticized the use by Trump of the word “dictator” while the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock qualified “absurd” comments.
“If you look at the real world instead of simply shooting a tweet, then you know who in Europe must live in the conditions of a dictatorship: people in Russia, people in Bélarus,” she told the diffuser ZDF.
Speaking in Florida, Trump called Zelensky as “dictator”, just hours after using the same word in a social article of truth on the Ukrainian president.
“He refuses to have elections. He is low in real Ukrainian polls. How can you be high with the demolition of each city?” Said Trump.
He also referred to his attempt to obtain minerals from the rare land of Ukraine, accusing the government of Zelensky of “breaking the agreement”.
His speech echoes his formulation of the social post of truth where Trump said that Zelensky “did a terrible job, his country is broken and that millions are unnecessarily died”. Meanwhile, the United States “successfully negotiated the end of the war with Russia,” he said.
A White House official said that Trump’s post was in direct response to the comments of Zelensky’s “disinformation”.
On Tuesday, US and Russian officials had their first high -level face -to -face talks since Russia’s large -scale invasion.
Getty imagesFormer Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, told BBC that Russia “was doing Champagne at the moment” in response to Trump’s comments.
“Volodymyr Zelensky is a completely legitimate president,” he said. “We cannot hold the elections under martial law.”
The War of Words began with comments made Tuesday by Trump at a press conference in Mar-A-Lago in Florida, when he Blamed Ukraine for war.
BBC News asked Trump what his message was to the Ukrainians who could feel betrayed, to which he replied: “I hear that they are upset not to have a seat, well, they have a seat for three years And a long time before that.
“You should never have started. You could have concluded an agreement,” added Trump.
Trump did not mention that President Vladimir Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
On Wednesday, Zelensky told journalists in kyiv: “We see a lot of disinformation and it comes from Russia. With all the respect I owe you to President Donald Trump as a leader … He lives in this disinformation space. “”
He added that he believed that “the United States has helped Putin come out years of isolation”.
Later in the day, the Ukrainian leader said that the world had been confronted with the choice of being “with Putin or with peace” and announced that he would meet the Ukrainian envoy of Washington, Keith Kellogg on Thursday.
Earlier, Zelensky also rejected Trump’s attempts to access Ukraine’s rare minerals, saying that no security guarantee had been offered in exchange.
Trump tried to make a problem with the popularity of Zelensky, saying that the Ukrainian president had only 4%approval rating. But the BBC checks the reports according to which the survey carried out this month found 57% of Ukrainians said they had trusted the president.
In the social post of the explosive truth on Wednesday, Trump also targeted Europe, saying that the war in Ukraine is “much more important for Europe than for us”.
“We have a large and magnificent ocean as separation,” he said.
Europe had “not managed to bring peace” to the region, he added.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke to journalists, saying that he would meet Trump “with pleasure”.
For its part, the EU said that it would place other sanctions against Russia.
New sanctions target Russian aluminum and dozens of ships suspected of illegally transporting oil. They would also disconnect more Russian banks from the global rapid payment system and prohibit more Russian dissemination media in Europe.
