The Trump administration is charting a very different course than the Biden administration which simply dumped billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine to bolster its war against Russia. In recent days, Trump has been 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 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.”
The Russian leader hailed Tuesday's talks between Russian and U.S. senior 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, saying that 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.”
Putin also added that he was surprised to see Trump showing “restraint” regarding the European leaders who backed his rival in the U.S. election.
“All European leaders effectively intervened directly in the U.S. elections,” he said, adding that some “directly insulted” Trump. “Frankly speaking, I’m surprised to see the newly elected U.S. president’s restraint regarding his allies, who have behaved in a boorish way to put it straight.”
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.
