Newsman: President Donald Trump mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a poor negotiator and “grossly incompetent” on Tuesday.
The comments come from negotiations that began early Tuesday between U.S. and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. The president also asserted that Ukrainians, who are fighting for their country’s survival, “are tired” of the death and destruction and eager to see the war end. “People want to see something happen.”
Asserting that the initial round of talks had gone “very well,” Trump bristled at Zelenskyy’s frustration over being excluded and at the Ukrainian president’s decision not to fly to Riyadh for additional talks with the U.S. delegation this week.
“Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited,’” Trump said when asked about criticism from Ukraine, seeming to direct his response to Zelenskyy. “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 Ukrainian president has been excluded from the administration’s negotiations with Russia seeking an end to the war. Donald Trump also confirmed his interest in forcing elections in Ukraine as part of any diplomatic resolution to the war.
Trump also confirmed his interest in forcing elections in Ukraine as part of any diplomatic resolution to the war.
“We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,” Trump said.
While Zelenskyy’s public approval rating has dropped from the early days of the war, he still has support from a narrow majority of Ukrainians — 52 percent according to a poll last month.
Trump also pushed back on a question stating that forcing Zelenskyy to stand for reelection was a Russian priority.
“That’s not a Russia thing,” Trump said. “That’s something coming from me and a lot of other countries also.”
