Trump and Zelenskyy trade barbs as U.S.-Ukraine relations sour over the war with Russia

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky gives a press conference in Kyiv, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Tetiana Dzhafarova/Pool Photo via AP)

KYIV, Ukraine — Relations between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump deteriorated rapidly Wednesday as Zelenskyy said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space” and Trump called Zelenskyy “a dictator without elections” in comments that were sure to complicate efforts to end the war.

Zelenskyy also said he would like Trump’s team “to be more truthful” as he offered his first response to a series of striking claims that Trump made a day earlier, including falsely suggesting that Kyiv was to blame for the war, which enters its fourth year next week.

The comments were a staggering back-and-forth between leaders of two countries that have been staunch allies in recent years under Trump’s predecessor. While former president Joe Biden was in the White House, the U.S. provided crucial military equipment to Kyiv to fend off the invasion and used its political weight to defend Ukraine and isolate Russia on the world stage.

The Trump administration has started charting a new course, reaching out to Russia and pushing for a peace deal. Senior officials from both countries held talks Tuesday to discuss improving ties, negotiating an end to the war and potentially preparing a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after years of frosty relations.

Trump lashes out on social media

Trump lashed out at Zelenskyy in a social media post that apparently referred to the fact that Ukraine has delayed elections because of the invasion and the subsequent imposition of martial law in accordance with the Ukrainian Constitution. Trump suggested Ukraine ought to hold elections.

Trump also called Zelenskyy “a modestly successful comedian” who “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.”

The president went on to say that the only thing Zelenskyy “was good at was playing Biden `like a fiddle.”' He advised Zelenskyy to “move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

He later repeated many of the criticisms of Zelenskyy, who he said has done a “terrible job,” during an address before a meeting in Miami of business executives hosted by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Meanwhile, Putin said he would like to meet with Trump.

Russia’s army crossed the border on Feb. 24, 2022, in an all-out invasion that Putin sought to justify by falsely asserting that it was needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine. He also accused the U.S. and its allies of ignoring Russia’s demand to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and to offer Moscow security guarantees. Ukraine and its allies denounced the assault as an unprovoked act of aggression.

“I would like to have a meeting, but it needs to be prepared so that it brings results,” Putin said Wednesday in televised remarks. He added that he would be “pleased” to meet Trump but noted that Trump has acknowledged that a Ukrainian settlement could take longer than he initially hoped.

Putin says he wants to rebuild US-Russia relations

The Russian leader hailed Tuesday’s talks between senior Russian and U.S. officials in the Saudi capital of Riyadh as “very positive.” He said officials who took part in the talks described the U.S. delegation to him as “completely different people who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any condemnation of what was done in the past,” and determined to work together with Moscow.

Putin said “the goal and subject” of Tuesday’s talks “was the restoration of Russia-U.S. relations.”

“Without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States, it is impossible to resolve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis. The goal of this meeting was precisely to increase trust between Russia and the United States,” Putin said.

He brushed off Zelenskyy’s complaints about Ukraine being left out of the U.S.-Russian talks amid larger worries that the deal taking shape could be unfavorable to Kyiv. Putin said Kyiv’s reaction was “unfounded.”

“President Trump told me during our phone call that the United States are proceeding from the assumption that the negotiations process will involve Russia and Ukraine,” Putin said. “No one is going to exclude Ukraine out of it.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that it was “wrong and dangerous” to deny Zelenskyy’s democratic legitimacy. Germany has been Kyiv’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the U.S.

“That no orderly elections can be held in the middle of the war corresponds to the stipulations of the Ukrainian Constitution and election laws. No one should say anything different,” Scholz told news outlet Der Spiegel.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke Wednesday to Zelenskyy and “stressed the need for everyone to work together,” according to Starmer’s office, which added that it is “perfectly reasonable” to suspend elections during wartime, as the U.K. did during World War II.

Ukrainian president meets with U.S. special envoy

Zelenskyy’s remarks Wednesday came shortly before he was to meet with Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine and Russia as part of the administration’s recent diplomatic blitz.

At a news conference Tuesday, Trump showed little patience for Ukraine’s objections to being excluded from the talks between top American and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia. He also said, without providing the source, that Zelenskyy’s approval rating stood at 4%, while telling reporters that Ukraine “should have never started” the war and “could have made a deal” to prevent it.

Zelenskyy replied Wednesday at his own news conference: “We have seen this disinformation. We understand that it is coming from Russia.” He said that Trump “lives in this disinformation space.”

Zelenskyy said he hoped Kellogg would walk through Kyiv and ask Ukrainians “if they trust their president? Do they trust Putin? Let him ask about Trump, what they think after the statements made by their president.”

The Ukrainian leader also referred to “the story” that 90% of all aid received by Ukraine comes from the United States. He said, for instance, that about 34% of all weapons in Ukraine are domestically produced and over 30% of support comes from Europe.

In other developments, a poll released Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology put public trust in Zelenskyy at 57%. The survey was conducted Feb. 4 to Feb. 9 among 1,000 people living across Ukraine in regions and territories controlled by the Ukrainian government.

The institute’s executive director, Anton Hrushetskyi, described the result as “very good” for a democratic society. In addition to public trust, he said, Zelenskyy “retains his legitimacy.”

Trump’s treatment of Zelenskyy makes Russia media gleeful

Russian state TV and other state-controlled media reacted with glee to what they portrayed as Trump’s cold shoulder to Zelenskyy.

“Trump isn’t even trying to hide his irritation with Zelenskyy,” the Rossiya channel said at the top of its newscast.

“Trump steamrolled Zelenskyy for his complaints about the talks with Russia,” the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said.

On the battlefield, a relentless onslaught in eastern areas by Russia’s bigger army is grinding down Ukrainian forces, which are slowly but steadily being pushed back at some points on the 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line.

American officials have signaled that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO after reaching a possible peace agreement won’t happen. Zelenskyy says any settlement will require U.S. security commitments to keep Russia at bay.

By Hanna Arhirova and Justin Spike, The Associated Press