Donald Trump’s campaign of geopolitical chaos continues at pace. First, the US president treated us to his “vision” for turning war-torn Gaza into a glittering “Riviera of the Middle East”. The White House then unleashed a global trade war on key allies and partners, including Australia.
Now, Trump has set his sights on Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. But in events which will ring alarm bells in Kyiv, the leader of the free world has falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia while demanding President Volodymyr Zelensky, hold elections – which could oust him from office – as the price of a peace deal.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have agreed that elections should be held in Ukraine before a final peace settlement.Credit: AP
Trump’s comment followed the first high-level diplomatic talks between the US and Russia since the war in Ukraine began almost three years ago. After more than four hours of discussions in Riyadh, both sides agreed elections should be held in Ukraine before a final peace settlement is reached. Remarkably, the Riyadh talks were held without a Ukrainian representative present.
On Ukraine having a seat at the table, Trump was clearly of a different view, taking a swipe at Zelensky over his public frustration for not being invited. “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited’,” Trump said. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.”
The ignorance is staggering, and the consequences unbelievably dangerous.
As the Herald’s Europe correspondent Rob Harris writes, the demand for an election has raised concerns among Western nations that the Kremlin will use the ballot to oust Ukraine’s wartime leader and install a pro-Russia candidate who would agree to peace terms favourable to Moscow.
“The high popularity that the Ukrainian president had in the early days of the Russian invasion, with an approval rating of about 90 per cent, has dipped badly,” Harris observes. “But as of December 2024, Zelensky’s approval rating stood at 52 per cent – not 4 per cent as Trump said, according to polling by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.”
Zelensky has previously promised to go to the polls at the end of the war, saying he wanted to give the more than 600,000 active troops a chance to vote.
The talks have sparked fears in Kyiv and in European capitals that Trump is prepared to settle the conflict on Putin’s terms. Trans-Atlantic ties have also been battered by a scathing speech by US Vice-President J.D. Vance that accused European leaders of ignoring the will of their voters.
