President Trump has spent the day attacking Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him a “dictator” and deepening the rift between the two leaders.
His attacks came after Zelensky, reacting to US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia from which Kyiv was excluded, said the US president was “living in a disinformation space” governed by Moscow.
Speaking at a Saudi-backed investment meeting in Florida, Trump said the only thing Zelensky “was really good at was playing Joe Biden like a fiddle”.
The “dictator” slur quickly prompted criticism from European leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said “it is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelensky his democratic legitimacy”. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer made it clear he backed Zelensky in a phone call to the Ukrainian president.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Sir Keir “expressed his support for President Zelensky as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader”. It was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War Two,” the spokesperson added.
A White House official said Trump’s post was in direct response to Zelensky’s “disinformation” comments.
On Tuesday US and Russian officials held their first high-level, face-to-face talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Credit: BBC