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US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have engaged in a war of words following the meeting between US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Trump lives in a “disinformation bubble” earlier in the day after the US President made comments that indicated that the war in Ukraine was triggered because of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (IMAGE: REUTERS)
US President Donald Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections” on Wednesday.
The Presidents have engaged in a war of words following the meeting between US and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia seeking a possible settlement to the Ukraine conflict, which left Kyiv unimpressed as its representatives were not called in the meeting.
“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of the Ukrainian leader, whose five-year term expired last year. Ukrainian law does not require elections during wartime.
Zelensky on Wednesday said that Donald Trump was living in a Russian “disinformation” bubble, responding to scathing comments by the US president about Zelensky’s popularity rating.
The Ukrainian leader also accused Washington of helping end Russian President Vladimir Putin’s international isolation, and said he wanted security guarantees from Kyiv’s allies that could enable the war to end this year.
“Unfortunately, President Trump, for whom we have great respect as leader of the American people… lives in this disinformation space,” Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv, accusing Moscow of misleading Trump.
Calling for presidential elections in Ukraine, which are banned under martial law, Trump said Zelenskyy was “down at four percent approval rating”.
Zelenskyy said the figure “comes from Russia”.
A telephone poll of 1,000 people by the respected Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, published on Wednesday, found that 57 percent of respondents trusted Zelenskyy, while 37 percent said they did not and the rest were undecided.
On Tuesday Trump held a press conference in which he criticized Zelenskyy, repeated several Kremlin narratives about the conflict and called for an end to the war.
“He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing (Joe) Biden ‘like a fiddle,'” said Trump in the Truth post of Zelenskyy.
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” Trump wrote in the post.
(with AFP inputs)
- Location :
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
