Donald Trump warns ‘dictator’ Volodymyr Zelenskyy to swiftly secure peace deal with Russia or risk losing Ukraine

The combo shows US President Donald Trump (L) and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.

US President Donald Trump has escalated a public war of words with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky by labeling him a “dictator,” warning that he needs to act quickly to secure a peace agreement with Russia or risk losing his country.

Trump made the controversial remarks on Wednesday, just a day after he blamed Ukraine for instigating the war with Russia, claiming that it also drew Washington into the three-year conflict.

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on his social media network Truth Social, raising concerns among European allies that his approach to resolving the conflict may favor Moscow.

Zelensky's five-year term was set to end in May 2024, but due to the martial law enacted in February 2022 following the war, elections cannot take place.

Trump's comments sparked swift reactions from Ukrainian officials, with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha stressing that no one could force his country to give in. “We will defend our right to exist,” he said on X.

On Tuesday, Trump said that it was Ukraine that started the persisting war with Russia, accusing Zelensky of prolonging the war to “keep the gravy train going,” a reference to US military aid.

Zelensky swiftly responded, accusing his American counterpart of merely echoing what he called the Kremlin’s disinformation about the conflict.

 “Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky said at the time.

Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has reversed US policy on Ukraine, ending efforts to isolate Russia and engaging in direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, sidelining Ukraine in the process.

Meanwhile, US Vice President JD Vance warned Zelensky against “badmouthing” Trump, while Republican leaders, though hesitant to directly criticize Trump, refrained from endorsing his stance on Ukraine’s responsibility for the war.

“Everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration,” Vance said in his West Wing office.

International reactions were largely critical of Trump’s remarks.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz slammed the US president’s comments against Zelensky as “false and dangerous”, while the United Nations reaffirmed that Zelensky holds office legitimately.

Despite disagreements within his own party, Trump continues to push for a peace deal that has unsettled both European leaders and US allies, reinforcing concerns over his shifting foreign policy approach.

Russia has captured around 20 percent of Ukraine and continues to steadily gain territory in the east, stressing that its “special military operation” is a response to the existential threat posed by Kiev’s pursuit of NATO membership, while Ukraine and the West label Russia’s actions as an imperialist land grab.

Zelensky has suggested granting US companies the right to extract valuable minerals from Ukraine in exchange for US security guarantees, rejecting a previous US proposal that would have given Washington 50 percent of Ukraine's critical minerals, including lithium.

He stressed that the deal was too focused on US interests, emphasizing that he could not “sell” his country.

Trump, for his part, claimed that Ukraine had “more or less” agreed to the proposal and criticized US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s treatment in Kiev, expressing his intent to revive the minerals deal.

This latest development, along with Trump’s recent war of words with Zelensky, has caught European officials by surprise, leading to emergency discussions about supporting Ukraine and bolstering Europe’s defense capabilities, although no concrete decisions were made.

On the diplomatic front, the EU imposed a 16th package of sanctions against Russia, including on aluminum and vessels believed to be carrying sanctioned Russian oil, while Putin indicated the possibility of peace talks with the US, though he stressed that the process would take time.

The exclusion of Ukraine and European governments from recent US-Russia meeting in Riyadh on how to end the conflict has raised concerns about a potential deal that might undermine Ukraine’s security interests, with Zelensky emphasizing the need for European unity and American pragmatism in the ongoing conflict.

 

The simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump escalated on Wednesday when the US president mocked his counterpart in a post filled with falsehoods, calling him a “dictator without elections.”

 

His comments came hours after Zelensky said the American leader had been “caught in a web of disinformation” from Russia over the war in Ukraine.

The pointed exchange was set off by a meeting of American and Russian officials to open talks on ending the war in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. After that meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Trump suggested that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Mr Zelensky on Wednesday morning.

“I would like to have more truth with the Trump team,” Zelensky said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine.

 

Zelensky, summoning reporters to his presidential office in Kyiv, a building still fortified with sandbags, said that the U.S. president was living in a “web of disinformation.”

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump responded with a scathing attack on Zelensky.

 

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 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,” Trump wrote.

 

As he did in making his assertions a day earlier, Trump lied. The United States, for instance, has allocated $119 billion for aid to Ukraine, according to a research organization in Germany, the Kiel Institute, not $350 billion.

 

Trump also suggested that the future security of Ukraine would not be an American problem. “This War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,” he wrote.

“We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”

The feud threatens to undermine Ukraine’s war effort and further weaken its position in the peace talks that have already started between the U.S. and Russia notably without Kyiv’s involvement.

 

 

Trump’s fixation on the United States being repaid for military and financial assistance over three years of war could put a stop to any future aid package to the war-torn country. Ukraine has long been dependent on regular American deliveries of air-defence weapons, shells and another type of ammunition to sustain its fight against Russia.

 

“Let’s be honest: Without the U.S., it will be very difficult for us,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said on Wednesday.

 

Kyiv has pushed for a seat at the negotiating table with Russia. But Trump’s portrayal of Moscow as a willing partner in peace talks, and his dismissal of Mr. Zelensky as an illegitimate and ineffective leader, risks further sidelining Ukraine.

 

In his social media post-Wednesday, Mr. Trump said that Zelensky had “better move fast” to secure peace “or he is not going to have a Country left.”

 

His comments followed up similarly accusatory statements he made on Tuesday. Trump said Ukraine “should have never started” the war, and appeared to embrace what has been a Russian demand that Ukraine hold elections as a necessary step in the settlement talks. Elections were suspended under martial law after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

 

 

Trump also said that Zelensky’s approval rating was 4 percent. Zelensky said that was not true, citing polls showing far higher support. In one conducted in December by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, for example, 52 percent of Ukrainians said that they trusted his leadership.

 

“So, if anyone wants to replace me right now — that’s not going to happen,” Zelensky said, referring to his approval ratings.

 

Trump’s false statements, Zelensky said, stemmed from misinformation spread by people around him. “Such rhetoric doesn’t help Ukraine — it only helps in bringing Putin out of isolation,” he said.

 

At the news conference Wednesday, Zelensky was focused and spoke with intensity. He said he was not personally ruffled by the negotiations with the Trump administration. “This is not my first dialogue or fight,” he said. “I take it calmly.”

 

Russia, he said, is clearly pleased with the turn of diplomatic developments. “I think Putin and the Russians are very happy because questions are discussed with them,” Mr. Zelensky said.

 

 

“Yesterday, there were signals of speaking with them as victims,” he said of the Trump officials’ tone toward the Russians, whose government set off the largest war in Europe since World War II, one that has killed or wounded about a million people on both sides. “That is something new.”

 

 

Ukrainians, Mr. Zelensky said, are not likely to trust promises Russian negotiators offer in talks. “Nobody in Ukraine trusts Putin,” he said.