Trump labels Zelensky ‘dictator’ as war of words with Ukrainian president escalates

US President Donald Trump labelled Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator” on Wednesday in a renewed attack on the Ukrainian president as the already strained relations between Kyiv and Washington continued to sour.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Zelensky, a “modestly successful comedian”, had “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, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle”.

He also appeared to accuse Zelensky of corruption, claiming that the Ukrainian president “admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING’” and sought continued US aid to “keep the ‘gravy train’ going”. Trump and his administration, meanwhile, were “successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia”, he claimed.

“A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left … I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died”, Trump concluded.

Trump’s remarks drew immediate criticism from European leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who said it was “wrong and dangerous” to deny Zelensky’s legitimacy, and Czech President Petr Pavel, who questioned how Trump expected Ukraine to hold elections “with a fifth of its territory occupied and the whole country under daily shelling”.

Despite Zelensky’s short-lived attempts to flatter Trump while he was US president elect and in the days immediately after his inauguration last month, Trump has consistently undermined and attacked the Ukrainian leader, blaming Zelensky for starting the war and falsely claiming that he had a domestic approval rating of just 4%, despite the fact that recent polling has shown that Zelensky has the support of over half the Ukrainian population.

On Wednesday, Zelensky hit back at Trump, accusing him of living in a “disinformation space” created by Russia and treating Moscow as victims rather than the aggressors in the war, while also stressing the logistical impossibility of holding elections in the country while Russia’s invasion continued.

A clause in the Ukrainian Constitution banning the holding of elections while the country is under martial law, as Ukraine has been since February 2022, led to the postponement of last year’s presidential elections, since when Zelensky has officially been acting president.