By Andrew E. Kramer, Constant Méheut and Anton Troianovski
The simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and President Donald Trump escalated Wednesday when Trump mocked his counterpart in a post filled with falsehoods, calling him a “dictator without elections.”
His comments came hours after Zelenskyy said the U.S. leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia over the war in Ukraine.
The pointed exchange came one day after officials from the United States and Russia opened talks to end the fighting in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. Hours after that meeting in Saudi Arabia, Trump suggested that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Zelenskyy on Wednesday morning.
“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” Zelenskyy said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy, summoning reporters to his presidential office in Kyiv, Ukraine, a building still fortified with sandbags, said that the U.S. president was living in a “web of disinformation.”
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump responded with a scathing attack on Zelenskyy.
“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 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 wrote.
As he did in making his assertions a day earlier, he misrepresented verifiable facts. The United States, for instance, has allocated $119 billion for aid to Ukraine, according to a research organization in Germany, the Kiel Institute, not $350 billion.
Trump also suggested that future security of Ukraine would not be America’s problem. “This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” he wrote. “We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”
The deepening feud threatens to undermine Ukraine’s war effort and further weaken its position in the peace talks that have already started between the U.S. and Russia — notably, without Kyiv’s involvement.
Trump’s fixation on the United States being repaid for military and financial assistance over three years of war could put a stop on any future aid package to the war-torn country. Ukraine has long been dependent on regular U.S. deliveries of air defense weapons, shells and other type of ammunition to sustain its fight against Russia.
“Let’s be honest: Without the U.S., it will be very difficult for us,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said Wednesday.
Ukraine has pushed for a seat at the negotiating table with Russia. But Trump’s portrayal of Russia as a willing partner in peace talks, and his dismissal of Zelenskyy as an illegitimate and ineffective leader, risks further sidelining Ukraine.
In his social media post Wednesday, Trump said in a menacing tone that Zelenskyy had “better move fast” to secure peace, “or he is not going to have a Country left.”
His comments followed up similarly accusatory statements he made Tuesday. Trump said Ukraine “should have never started” the war and appeared to embrace what has been a Russian demand that Ukraine hold elections as a necessary step in the settlement talks. Elections were suspended under martial law after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Trump also said Tuesday that Zelenskyy’s approval rating was 4%. Zelenskyy said that was not true, citing polls showing far higher support. In one conducted in December by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, for example, 52% of Ukrainians said that they trusted his leadership.
“So if anyone wants to replace me right now, that’s not going to happen,” Zelenskyy said, referring to his approval ratings.
Trump’s false statements, Zelenskyy said, stemmed from misinformation spread by people around him. “Such rhetoric doesn’t help Ukraine; it only helps in bringing Putin out of isolation,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Until this week, Zelenskyy had walked a fine line of staking out Ukrainian positions while avoiding any suggestion of an open breach with the United States, Ukraine’s most important ally in a war that is nearing the three-year mark. But after the initial ceasefire talks between Russia and the United States on Tuesday, Zelenskyy starkly laid out his refusal to accept terms negotiated without Ukrainian participation.
His comments Wednesday — pushing back on Trump’s false assertions while refraining from direct criticism by attributing them to a broader disinformation bubble — were in line with his efforts to maintain a balancing act and maintain ties with the U.S.
At the news conference Wednesday, Zelenskyy was focused and spoke with intensity. He said he was not personally ruffled by the negotiations with the Trump administration. “This is not my first dialogue or fight,” he said. “I take it calmly.”
コメント