UJ
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President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has accused Donald Trump of propagating disinformation, following the US president’s inaccurate assertion that Ukraine initiated the war with Russia.
Zelensky’s remarks form part of what is turning out to be the most public exchange of accusations between Kyiv and Washington since the onset of the full-scale war nearly three years ago.
Addressing the press in Kyiv, Zelensky countered several baseless assertions made by the US president on Tuesday, reiterating that any negotiations to end the war must include Ukraine.
“Regrettably, President Trump – whom I respect as a leader of a nation we hold in high esteem, and the American people who continually support us – unfortunately lives within this disinformation realm,” Zelensky remarked.
Officials from the US and Russia engaged in high-level discussions regarding the end of the conflict in Ukraine in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, a meeting from which Kyiv was notably absent.
Both parties committed to appointing senior teams for negotiating peace and indicated they were striving to restore diplomatic communications.
It was Kyiv’s concern over being excluded from these negotiations that triggered Trump’s barrage of inaccuracies on Tuesday.
In comments made late Tuesday, Trump stated: “I heard, ‘Oh well, we weren’t invited.’ You’ve been there for three years. You should have ended this long ago. You should never have initiated it. You could have made a deal.”
The erroneous claim suggesting that Ukraine instigated the war has been a consistent narrative pushed by the Kremlin and its affiliates. The conflict commenced in 2014 when Russia unlawfully annexed Crimea and began backing pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
In February 2022, Moscow escalated its aggression by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, attacking the country, advancing tanks across the border, bombarding Ukrainian cities, and dispatching special forces to Kyiv with the intent of assassinating Zelensky.
However, Trump did not stop at questioning the war’s origins. He also seemed to challenge Zelensky’s legitimacy by reiterating another Kremlin-favored narrative.
“We have a situation where elections haven’t been held in Ukraine, and martial law is in effect,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate, inaccurately stating that Zelensky’s approval rating stood at “4%.”
Zelensky received over 73% of the votes during the second round of the 2019 presidential election. Although his term was supposed to conclude last May, elections were postponed due to the martial law imposed after Russia’s unprovoked invasion, which prohibits electoral processes.
During remarks made on Wednesday, Zelensky specifically pointed out that claims of his approval rating being at 4% stem from Russia, noting that Kyiv has some evidence indicating that this information was discussed between the US and Russia.
He referenced a recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which revealed that although his popularity has significantly declined since the war’s inception, his approval rating has consistently remained above 50% and currently sits at 57%.
