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Sir Keir Starmer said Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a “democratically elected leader” and that it is “perfectly reasonable” to suspend the elections in wartime, after Donald Trump described the Ukrainian president “dictator”.
The British Prime Minister spoke Wednesday with the Ukrainian president after the American president sparked a large against Zelenskyy on his social platform of truth, accusing him of being an autocrat who “refuses to have elections” .
Stressing the need for “everyone to work together”, Starmer has launched his support behind Zelenskyy’s decision to suspend the elections in Ukraine while the country is torn by the conflict, citing a precedent in the United Kingdom during the Second War global, according to Downing Street.
The British Prime Minister reiterated his “support for efforts led by the United States to obtain lasting peace in Ukraine that has dissuaded Russia from any future attack,” added a Downing Street spokesman.
Trump’s comments sparked the censorship of the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said it was “simply false and dangerous to refuse President Zelenskyy his democratic legitimacy”.
The Ukrainian chief had previously accused Trump of living in a “disinformation space” after the American president suggested that kyiv was responsible for the outbreak of war with Russia.
The British Secretary for Defense, John Healey, was frank in the refutation of the complaint, telling journalists during a visit to Norway: “Three years ago, a country has illegally invaded another, and since then, Ukrainians fight for their freedom. . . And they are still.
Healey also urged to “compromise peace by forgetting war”, after the United States and Russia launched discussions on the implementation of the Ukrainian conflict in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
Starmer’s intervention increases the risk of achieving relations with Trump before the British Prime Minister went to the White House next week for interviews with the American president.
British ministers admit that Starmer wanted to avoid annoying Trump as he seeks to become a “bridge” between the United States and Europe. Starmer also wants to try to persuade Trump not to impose prices for British exports to the United States.
“On problems like prices, why would you rock the boat now?” asked for a British minister. “The Prime Minister will meet Trump next week so that they can discuss it face to face.”
Starmer proposed a summit with European leaders after his return from Washington to discuss the next stages of the future of Ukraine, but he has undergone increasing political pressure in Great Britain to publicly criticize Trump.
The liberal democratic chief SIR Ed Davey, who has cut a niche for his party by castigating Trump at a time when other British politicians are trying to arouse favor, exhorted Starmer to take a more robust line.
“When the Prime Minister visits the White House next week, he has to challenge Trump on his Ukraine in the strongest possible terms,” said Davey.
He added: “It is incredibly alarming to see the supposed leader of Putin propaganda in the free world.”
While Starmer said on Monday that he was “ready and disposed” to put British troops in Ukraine to guarantee his security as part of a peace agreement, Western officials suggested on Wednesday that British air support offers might be more likely than the deployment of soldiers on the ground.
Managers sketched the idea of a force of less than 30,000 troops led by Europe which could help protect nuclear sites, ports and cities in Ukraine, rather than patrol in any frozen front line with Russia.
Trump’s salvo against Zelenskyy also put conservative chief Kemi Badenoch in disagreement with the American president, after trying to establish favorable parallels between his party and his Maga movement on Monday.
“President Zelenskyy is not a dictator,” she said on Wednesday to X. “He is the democratically elected leader of Ukraine who courageously resisted the illegal invasion of Putin.”
Stressing that under its leaders, the Conservatives “would always be with” kyiv, she said that Trump “right to say that Europe needed to gain its weight”.
