Trump tells ‘dictator’ zelenskyy to move fast for peace or lose ukraine

Trump tells ‘dictator’ zelenskyy to move fast for peace or lose ukraine

President Donald Trump calls Ukrainian President a ‘dictator without elections’; the latter responds to Trump’s claims by stating that Trump is living in a ‘disinformation space’; U.S. President also mentions possibility of meeting Putin this month.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as ‘a dictator without elections’ and said he had better move fast to secure a peace or he would have no country left.

Mr. Trump spoke hours after Mr. Zelenskyy 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,’ Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform.

In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said no one could force his country to give in. ‘We will defend our right to exist,’ Mr. Sybiha said on X.

Mr. Zelenskyy’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.

Mr. Zelenskyy, who met Mr. Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Wednesday, said he would like Mr. Trump’s team to have ‘more truth’ about Ukraine, a day after Mr. Trump said Ukraine ‘should never have started’ the conflict with Russia.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump said he may meet Mr. Putin this month. The Kremlin said such a meeting could take longer to prepare but Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said it expected a number of U.S. companies to return to Russia as early as the second quarter.

In Moscow, Mr. Putin said on Wednesday that Ukraine would not be barred from peace negotiations but success would depend on raising the level of trust between Moscow and Washington. Mr. Putin, speaking a day after Russia and the U.S. held their first talks on how to end the three-year-old conflict, also said it would take time to set up a summit with Mr. Trump, which both men have said they want.