Trump Tells ‘dictator’ Zelenskiy to Move Fast for Peace or Lose Ukraine
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.
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Russia has seized some 20% of Ukraine and 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.
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