United States President Donald Trump has escalated his feud with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections” and accusing him of wanting to keep the “gravy train” of US military support going while Washington tries to end the war with Russia.
In a lengthy and scathing post on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump accused Zelenskyy of taking US money and embroiling the country in an endless conflict.
Trump later doubled down on those comments, telling an audience at an investment summit in Miami that Zelenskyy had “done a terrible job, his country is shattered, and millions and millions of people have unnecessarily died”.
Trump, a former reality TV star, also attacked the Ukrainian leader personally on social media.
“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,” Trump wrote.
The US president continued by insinuating that Zelenskyy had ulterior motives for wanting Ukraine to continue fighting for its territory.
“Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the ‘gravy train’ going,” Trump said, using an idiom that suggests Ukraine is taking advantage of US funds.
Trump’s social media post marked his most stinging attack on the Ukrainian president, a US ally who has led his country’s fight against a full-scale Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
But Trump then matched his online hostility towards Zelenskyy in his later speech in Miami, branding the Ukrainian leader a “dictator” and lauding his own overtures towards Russia on a deal to end the war.
“A dictator without elections. Zelenskyy better move fast or he’s not going to have a country left. Gotta move. Gotta move fast cause that war’s going in the wrong direction,” Trump said onstage at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute summit.
“In the meantime, we’re successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia. Something I’ll admit that only Trump is going to be able to do and the Trump administration – we’re going to be able to do it. I think Putin even admitted that,” he said.
“Biden never tried. Europe has failed to bring peace and Zelenskyy probably wants to, maybe he wants to keep the gravy train going. I don’t know what’s the problem, but he has been able. He’s very upset,” he added.
‘Notoriously thin-skinned’ Trump
Al Jazeera’s White House correspondent, Kimberly Halkett, said Trump’s broadsides against Zelenskyy followed after the Ukrainian leader had said the US president was inhabiting a “Russian-made disinformation space” when it came to his views on the war in Ukraine.
“The reason that Donald Trump is doing this is that he is notoriously thin-skinned. And he is not happy about the comments that Volodymyr Zelenskyy made earlier,” Halkett said.
“He is responding to that and calling Volodymyr Zelenskyy not a Ukrainian leader but, in fact, a modestly successful comedian … But he’s also really negotiating too,” Halkett said, noting that Trump’s barbs come on the heels of the US-Russia meeting in Saudi Arabia on ending the war.
Trump’s overall posture has become increasingly hostile towards Zelenskyy, as he and his government draw closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Already, European allies have responded with outrage over Trump’s latest remarks, saying his comments are detrimental to the peace process.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for instance, responded forcefully against the allegations that Zelenskyy was a “dictator” for not holding elections in wartime.
“It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy democratic legitimacy,” Scholz told the newspaper Spiegel shortly after Trump’s post.
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the elected head of state of Ukraine. The fact that proper elections cannot be held in the middle of a war is in line with the requirements of the Ukrainian constitution and electoral laws. No one should claim otherwise.”
In his own social media post on Tuesday, Zelenskyy reiterated his position that Putin was not to be trusted – and urged Europe and the US to work together to seek a resolution to the war.
“We cannot allow Putin to deceive everyone again,” Zelenskyy wrote.
“Before any potential negotiations, all partners must clearly understand that strong security guarantees are the priority for lasting peace.”
Zelenskyy has also warned that it would be “very, very, very difficult” for Ukraine to survive Russia’s continuing assault without US support, and he has called for a united US-Europe front against the aggression.
The war in Ukraine will reach its third anniversary on February 24, with no clear end in sight.
