The relationship between the United States and Ukraine, which has helped Kyiv fend off the Russian invasion for the past three years, appeared on the verge of collapse Wednesday as the presidents of the two countries publicly traded insults.
The furor has the potential to leave Ukraine – which is already losing ground along the front line – without the support of its biggest ally, as U.S. President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s future existence into question.
The relationship between Mr. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hit a new low Wednesday as Mr. Trump called Mr. Zelensky “a dictator,” referring to the fact that the war forced Ukraine to postpone elections that were supposed to be held last year.
The relationship was already strained by memories of the “Ukrainegate” scandal – which revolved around a 2019 phone call between the two leaders – that led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment by Congress during his first term in office.
“A dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social account. “In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia.”
Hours earlier, Mr. Zelensky – who is opposed to U.S.-Russia negotiations on the future of Ukraine that have been launched by Mr. Trump without any Ukrainian participation – said he believed Mr. Trump was living in a “disinformation space” created by Moscow.
Meanwhile, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine is in Kyiv for talks and is expected to meet Mr. Zelensky on Thursday. Keith Kellogg told reporters that his mission was to “sit and listen.”
The public quarrel between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky is taking place days after Mr. Zelensky refused to sign a proposed deal that would have given the Americans the right to US$500-billion worth of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as reimbursement for past and presumably future assistance to Kyiv.
In a deeply personal attack delivered via social media, Mr. Trump said Mr. Zelensky – a TV personality before he went into politics – was a “modestly successful comedian” whose main achievement was repeatedly persuading former president Joe Biden to send aid to Ukraine.
Europe in disarray and ill-prepared after Donald Trump cuts it out of Ukraine talks. It missed a lot of signals
Mr. Trump also falsely claimed that the U.S. has given nearly double the assistance to Ukraine that it actually has over the past three years, and insinuated that Mr. Zelensky was responsible for the non-existent funds going “missing.” (Mr. Trump claimed Washington had given US$350-billion to Kyiv. The actual amount, according to the U.S. government’s own Ukraine Oversight webpage, is US$183-billion.)
The dispute began Tuesday when Mr. Zelensky took umbrage at his country’s exclusion from U.S.-Russia talks being held in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The negotiations – which saw a three-person U.S. delegation headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio meet face to face with a two-person Russian team led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – marked the end of three years of efforts to isolate Moscow that had been led by Mr. Biden.
Mr. Zelensky responded by cancelling his own planned trip to Riyadh, and repeating his insistence that negotiations regarding the fate of Ukraine should not be held without his country’s participation.
Mr. Trump seemed to take offence at Mr. Zelensky’s opposition to a process he launched last week by holding a surprise phone call with Mr. Putin. In a press conference of his own, Mr. Trump appeared to blame Ukraine for starting the war, and falsely claimed that Mr. Zelensky was wildly unpopular in his own country.
“I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. But today I heard, ‘Oh, oh, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” Mr. Trump said, speaking Tuesday from his residence in Mar-a-Lago. He added that “the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4-per-cent approval rating.”
While Mr. Zelensky’s approval ratings have fallen as the war has dragged on, a poll published Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 57 per cent of Ukrainians said they trusted their President.
At a Wednesday press conference in Kyiv, Mr. Zelensky suggested that the 4-per-cent figure had been fed to Mr. Trump by the Kremlin. “We have seen this disinformation. We understand that it comes from Russia. We have evidence that these figures are being discussed between America and Russia.”
Mr. Zelensky said that the U.S.-Russia talks had so far helped only Moscow. “I would like Trump’s team to be more truthful because all of this certainly does not have a positive impact on Ukraine. Instead, it is helping to bring Putin out of isolation. And I think that Putin and the Russians are very pleased about this.”
Speaking during a visit to St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Mr. Putin praised the Riyadh talks as a positive “first step” in rebuilding relations between the U.S. and Russia. Mr. Putin also said that Mr. Trump was beginning to receive “objective information,” without elaborating.
The issue of elections – and questioning whether Mr. Zelensky is a legitimate negotiating partner – is another Kremlin talking point that Mr. Trump appears to have taken on board. Fox News has reported that the U.S. and Russia are working toward a three-stage peace plan that would begin with a ceasefire along the current front line, with Russia retaining control of the approximately 20 per cent of Ukraine it now occupies. Elections in Ukraine are envisioned as a second step, followed by negotiations on a permanent peace deal.
Holding elections in Ukraine would require Mr. Zelensky to suspend the martial law he imposed at the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Ending martial law would likely lead to a collapse of the country’s mobilization efforts, while creating political infighting for Moscow to exploit. It’s also unclear whether or how elections could be carried out in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
The Western coalition backing Ukraine has also been rattled by the quarrel, as well as Mr. Trump’s deepening embrace of the Kremlin’s version of the war.
Hinting at the unease among Ukraine’s allies, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer released a statement late Wednesday expressing “his support for President Zelensky as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader,” adding that it was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the U.K. did during World War II.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “wrong and dangerous” to suggest Mr. Zelensky was not the democratically chosen leader of Ukraine.
However, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, in an interview with the Daily Mail, a right-wing British tabloid, warned that Mr. Zelensky was not helping his country’s cause by trying to stand up to Mr. Trump.
“The idea that Zelensky is going to change the President’s mind by bad mouthing him in public media, everyone who knows the President will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-trump-zelensky-ukraine-us-relationship-russia-war/
