KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Relations between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump deteriorated rapidly Wednesday as Zelenskyy said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” and Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” in comments that were sure to complicate efforts to end the war.
Zelenskyy also said he would like Trump’s team “to be more truthful” as he offered his first response to a series of striking claims that Trump made a day earlier, including falsely suggesting that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week.
The comments from Trump and Zelenskyy were a staggering back-and-forth between leaders of two countries that have been staunch allies in recent years under Trump’s predecessor. While former President Joe Biden was in the White House, the U.S. provided crucial military equipment to Kyiv to fend off the invasion and used its political weight to defend Ukraine and isolate Russia on the world stage.
The Trump administration has started charting a new course, reaching out to Russia and pushing for a peace deal. Senior officials from both countries held talks Tuesday to discuss improving ties, negotiating an end to the war and potentially preparing a meeting between Trump and Putin after years of frosty relations.
Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy in a social media post, calling him “a modestly successful comedian” who “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, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle.”
Trump went on to say that the only thing Zelenskyy “was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle.’” He advised Zelenskyy to “move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would like to meet with Trump.
Russia’s army crossed the border on Feb. 24, 2022, in an all-out invasion that Putin sought to justify by saying it was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine and prevent the country from joining NATO. Ukraine and its allies denounced it as an unprovoked act of aggression.
“I would like to have a meeting, but it needs to be prepared so that it brings results,” Putin said Wednesday in televised remarks. He added that he would be “pleased” to meet Trump but noted that Trump has acknowledged that a Ukrainian settlement could take longer than he initially hoped.
The Russian leader hailed Tuesday’s talks between Russian and U.S. senior officials in the Saudi capital of Riyadh as “very positive.” He said officials who took part in the talks described the U.S. delegation to him as “completely different people who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any condemnation of what was done in the past,” and determined to work together with Moscow.
Putin said “the goal and subject” of Tuesday’s talks “was the restoration of Russia-U.S. relations.”
“Without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States, it is impossible to resolve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis. The goal of this meeting was precisely to increase trust between Russia and the United States,” Putin said.
He brushed off Zelenskyy’s complaints about Ukraine being left out of the U.S.-Russian talks, saying that Kyiv’s reaction was “unfounded.”
“President Trump told me during our phone call that the United States are proceeding from the assumption that the negotiations process will involve Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said. “No one is going to exclude Ukraine out of it.”
Putin also added that he was surprised to see Trump showing “restraint” regarding the European leaders who backed his rival in the U.S. election.
