Donald Trump urged Ukraine to hold new elections in a dig at President Volodymyr Zelensky and his handing of the Ukraine war.
The US president has hit out at those criticising the absence of Ukrainian officials from talks held between Russia and US on ending the war in Ukraine and suggested that Zelensky doesn’t have the full support of his country.
There has been plenty of concern from America’s Western allies over how the Trump administration has gone ahead with talks without Ukraine. It led to France calling an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the UK on Monday.
Asked at a press conference about Zelensky’s absence the US president seemed to question whether he should be there as leader. He claimed that the Ukraine leader has just a 4% approval rating in his country.
“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we essentially have martial law,” he said. “Where the leader in the Ukraine, I hate to say it, he is down at 4% approval rating and the country has been blown to smithereens. Most of the cities are lying on their sides, buildings have collapsed it looks like a massive demolition site.
“So many cities, they haven’t done it in Kyiv I suppose because they don’t want to shoot too many rockets there – they’ve done it 20% but they haven’t done it 100% there, and if they wanted to do it 100% then they could probably do it very quickly. You have cities that are absolutely decimated.
“And if they want a seat at the table well the people of Ukraine could well it’s a long time since we’ve had an election. That’s not a Russia thing, that’s something coming from me and many other countries as well.”
Mr Trump add that he was “more confident” about a peace deal after today’s discussions in Saudi Arabia, which were attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Putin’s chief diplomat, Sergey Lavrov. Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the US president also said that he would not be against seeing European peacekeeping troops posted to Ukraine as part of a peace deal.
He told media: “If they want to do that, that’d be fine.” He added that the US would “not object to that at all”. Trump then said: “I know France has mentioned it. Others have mentioned it, the UK has mentioned it.” He called the prospect a “beautiful gesture”.
It comes after Lavrov said earlier today that Russia would not accept the presence NATO troops in Ukraine. The Russian foreign minister said: “Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable.” The US President also claimed that he could have “made a deal” for Ukraine if he were US president in 2022.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today the talks were just the start of dialogue, adding that Russia and the US agreed to start working towards ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. Rubio, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov in Riyadh.
And Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.
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