Trump brands Zelensky a 'dictator' as war of words intensifies

The feud between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump escalated on Wednesday when Zelensky said the American leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia and Trump mocked his counterpart as a “dictator without elections” who had done a terrible job as president.

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 Zelensky on Wednesday morning.

Zelensky said that the US president was living in a “circle of disinformation.” He made the remarks to a group of reporters he had summoned to his presidential office in Kyiv, a building still fortified with sandbags to avoid blasts from Russian missiles.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump responded with a scathing attack on Zelensky.

“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,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Trump also suggested that future security of Ukraine would not be an American problem. “This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” he wrote. “We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”

His comments followed up similarly accusatory statements he made on 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’s false statements, Zelensky 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.