Trump said something mean, and Zelenskyy replied that Ukraine is not for sale.
The angry reaction came after Trump said that Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s invasion three years ago.
Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, responded to Donald Trump’s claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia. He said that Trump was living in a “disinformation bubble” and that his country was not for sale.
The angry reaction came after Trump said something surprising on Tuesday: that Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s invasion of the country three years ago. Also, Trump said that Kyiv could have reached a deal to stop the fighting.
The president also said that Zelenskyy’s approval rate in Ukraine was only 4%, even though a poll released Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed that 57% of Ukrainians trust him.
Zelenskyy denounced false information from Russia and stated that anyone attempting to replace him during the war would fail. Trump brought up the idea of Ukrainian elections because Russian President Vladimir Putin has said many times that Zelenskyy is not Ukraine’s real leader. He said that most Ukrainians would not agree with giving in to Russia.
Zelenskyy said, “The army is very strong; in fact, it is the strongest in Europe. This gives us the chance to talk with other partners, allies and non-allies, with respect and on an equal level.”
He talked about the $67 billion in weapons and $31.5 billion in budgetary aid that the U.S. has given to Ukraine so far. Zelenskyy said that the U.S. demands that Ukraine hand over more than $500 billion in minerals were “not a serious conversation” and that he could not sell his country.
On the same day that Zelenskyy spoke, Trump replied to what the Ukrainian leader had said earlier about not wanting “anyone making decisions behind our backs.”
Tuesday night, Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club, “But today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’” He said he thought he had the power to end the war in Ukraine. “You’ve been there for three years now.”
“You ought not have begun it,” he said. “You could have worked something out.”
When it comes to the bigger change in U.S. foreign policy, Moscow has been more positive. Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, told Russian lawmakers on Wednesday that the Kremlin was happy with the progress of talks, but he did not directly address Trump’s statements.
Lavrov said that the U.S. president is “the first and, so far, apparently the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the situation in Ukraine was the brazen path of the previous administration to bring Ukraine into NATO.” “This has never been said by a Western leader.”
“This is already a sign that he understands our position,” Lavrov said in a speech that was more about the second Trump administration as a whole than about the president’s specific comments Tuesday.
The Kremlin was also happy when Trump said that Ukrainians might be wondering what’s going on with their next election.
Trump was echoing the comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin has been in charge of Russia for all but four of the last 25 years, but he has often questioned Zelenskyy’s ability to stay in office based on his election results.
In 2019, Ukraine had its last presidential election. Another one was supposed to happen in April of this year, but Zelenskyy has said in the past that Ukrainians can’t vote while the country is at war, and the country’s law backs up that view.
A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month showed that 47% of Americans are somewhat or fully satisfied with Trump’s job performance. This is when Trump made his comments about Zelenskyy’s approval numbers.
In Kyiv, regular Ukrainians repeated their support for Zelenskyy while keeping a close eye on Trump and Putin’s efforts to get along.
Fedir Logvynenko, 49, said, “I don’t like how Trump is interested in Putin.” “I don’t quite understand whether it’s from great intelligence or from complete incompetence.”
He also said that he agreed with Zelenskyy that he would not “accept an agreement on Ukraine without Ukraine.” He also said that he would criticize Ukraine’s European allies.
He said that the leaders of Europe were “indecisive” and “weak,” and that Ukraine had “no choice but to build an alliance with Europe, outside of NATO, or rather, on the remains of NATO.”
A 42-year-old real estate agent named Yuliya Antonyuk said, “We couldn’t handle things without American weapons and help.”
“I don’t want people to die every day.” She also said, “I want to sleep peacefully,” and that it would be “impossible” to hold presidential elections in the country right now because “shelling is going on all the time.”