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The simmering feud between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump escalated on Wednesday when Mr. Trump mocked his counterpart in a post filled with falsehoods, calling him a \u201cdictator without elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
His comments came hours after Mr. Zelensky said the American leader had been \u201ccaught in a web of disinformation\u201d from Russia over the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The pointed exchange was set off by a meeting of American and Russian officials to open talks<\/a> on ending the war in Ukraine that excluded the Ukrainian government. After that meeting in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested<\/a> that Ukraine had started the war, a comment that brought a strong rebuttal from Mr. Zelensky on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to have more truth with the Trump team,\u201d Mr. Zelensky said in some of the most overt criticism yet of Mr. Trump and his view of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Zelensky, summoning reporters to his presidential office in Kyiv, a building still fortified with sandbags, said that the U.S. president was living in a \u201cweb of disinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a post<\/a> on his Truth Social account, Mr. Trump responded with a scathing attack on Mr. Zelensky.<\/p>\n \u201cThink of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn\u2019t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and \u201cTRUMP,\u201d will never be able to settle,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote.<\/p>\n As he did in making his assertions a day earlier, he misrepresented verifiable facts. The United States, for instance, has allocated $119 billion for aid to Ukraine, according to a research organization in Germany, the Kiel Institute, not $350 billion.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump also suggested that future security of Ukraine would not be an American problem. \u201cThis War is far more important to Europe than it is to us,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The deepening feud threatens to undermine Ukraine\u2019s war effort and further weaken its position in the peace talks that have already started between the U.S. and Russia \u2014 notably without Kyiv\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s fixation on the United States being repaid for military and financial assistance over three years of war could put a stop on any future aid package to the war-torn country. Ukraine has long been dependent on regular American deliveries of air-defense weapons, shells and other type of ammunition to sustain its fight against Russia.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s be honest: Without the U.S., it will be very difficult for us,\u201d Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine\u2019s military intelligence agency, said on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kyiv has pushed for a seat at the negotiating table with Russia. But Mr. Trump\u2019s portrayal of Moscow as a willing partner in peace talks, and his dismissal of Mr. Zelensky as an illegitimate and ineffective leader, risks further sidelining Ukraine.<\/p>\n In his social media post Wednesday, Mr. Trump said in a menacing tone that Mr. Zelensky had \u201cbetter move fast\u201d to secure peace \u201cor he is not going to have a Country left.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n His comments followed up similarly accusatory statements he made on Tuesday. Mr. Trump said Ukraine \u201cshould have never started\u201d the war, and appeared to embrace what has been a Russian demand that Ukraine hold elections as a necessary step in the settlement talks. <\/span>Elections were suspended under martial law after Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump also said Tuesday that Mr. Zelensky\u2019s approval rating was 4 percent. Mr. Zelensky said that was not true, citing polls showing far higher support. In one conducted in December<\/a> by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, for example, 52 percent of Ukrainians said that they trusted his leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, if anyone wants to replace me right now \u2014 that\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d Mr. Zelensky said, referring to his approval ratings.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s false statements, Mr. Zelensky said, stemmed from misinformation spread by people around him. \u201cSuch rhetoric doesn\u2019t help Ukraine \u2014 it only helps in bringing Putin out of isolation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n