FIRST Minister John Swinney has responded after US president Donald Trump branded Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator.
In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump said Ukrainian president Zelenskyy had “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
The pair have been trading blows after Trump shocked Ukraine and his Nato allies by announcing he would hold peace talks with Russia to end the war – with Kyiv and other European nations excluded.
The US president repeated his attacks on the Ukrainian leader overnight after a war of words erupted between the two leaders, which saw Trump criticise Zelenskyy for postponing elections and claiming Ukraine started the war with Russia.
The First Minister posted a screenshot of Trump's post on Truth Social, and wrote: "This is completely and utterly wrong. Scotland stands with Ukraine."
Swinney also added the flag emojis of Scotland and Ukraine.
Speaking at a Saudi-backed investment meeting in Miami, Trump repeated the remarks made in the post, and said:“A modestly successful comedian, President Zelensky, talked the United States of America into spending 350 billion dollars (£278bn) to go into a war that basically couldn’t be won, that never had to start and never would have started if I was president.
“He refuses to have elections. The only thing he was really good at was playing Joe Biden like a fiddle.
“A dictator without elections, Zelenskyy better move fast. He’s not going to have a country left. That war is going in the wrong direction. In the meantime, we’re successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia.”
