Ukraine war latest: Trump warns Zelensky to ‘move fast or lose the country’ and calls Kyiv leader dictator
Donald Trump has launched into a war of words with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as the US president accused the Kyiv leader of being a “dictator” who had “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.
In a bizarre statement on his social media platform Truth Social, Mr Trump hit back at Mr Zelensky after the Ukrainian leader said Mr Trump was living in a “disinformation space” of Russian making.
“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,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“He refuses to have elections, is very low in Ukrainian polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle’,” he added.
“A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Zelensky had hit back at Trump, saying he was clouded by Russian misinformation and describing his demand for $500 billion in minerals as “not serious”. On Tuesday, Mr Trump had told reporters that Kyiv should have “never started” the war – ignoring the reality of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Mr Zelensky is due to meet with the Trump administration’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellog today.
