Trump calls Zelenskyy a ‘dictator without elections’ as tensions with Kyiv escalate
This combination of pictures created on February 12, 2025 shows (L-R) Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky in Brussels, on October 17, 2024 and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington,U.S. on February 10, 2025. (AFP Photo)
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections,” intensifying his attacks amid rising tensions between Kyiv and Washington.
The U.S. had provided funding and arms to Ukraine but, in an abrupt policy shift since coming to power, Trump has opened talks with Moscow.
“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Zelenskyy’s five-year term expired last year, but Ukrainian law does not require elections during wartime.
Ukrainian law does not require elections during wartime.
On Tuesday Trump held a press conference in which he criticized Zelenskyy, repeated several Kremlin narratives about the conflict and called for an end to the war.
Zelenskyy in turn accused Trump of succumbing to Russian “disinformation,” including Trump blaming of Kyiv for having “started” the war and echoing Kremlin questions over Zelenskyy’s legitimacy.
‘We are successfully negotiating’
“He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing (Joe) Biden ‘like a fiddle,'” said Trump in the Truth post of Zelenskyy.
“In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do,” Trump wrote in the post.
Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained leader under martial law imposed following the Russian invasion.
His popularity has eroded, but the percentage of Ukrainians who trust him has never dipped below 50% since the conflict started, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
