This combination of pictures shows Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on February 19, and US President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 18. TETIANA DZHAFAROVA, ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP
US President Donald Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator without elections” on Wednesday, February 19, stepping up his attacks as tensions soar between Kyiv and Washington. “A Dictator without Elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of the Ukrainian leader, whose five-year term expired last year. Ukrainian law does not require elections during wartime.
“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,'” wrote Trump in the post. “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.”
Calling for presidential elections in Ukraine, which are banned under martial law, Trump said Tuesday of Zelensky: “He’s down at 4% approval rating.” Zelensky said the figure “comes from Russia.” In Ukraine, no one questions Zelensky’s legitimacy, even if the president’s popularity rating has fallen. According to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), his confidence rating stood at 52% in December 2024, down from 77% a year earlier.
Trump also contended that Zelensky was misusing American aid intended for the war effort and had taken advantage of Democrat Joe Biden’s administration.
Zelensky was also quickly admonished by Vice President JD Vance about the perils of publicly criticizing the new president.
Vance told the Daily Mail that Zelensky’s criticism of Trump was not helping his cause. “The idea that Zelensky is going to change the president’s mind by bad mouthing him in public media, everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration,” Vance said.
Zelensky remains ‘confident’
Zelensky, despite the escalation, remains “confident,” and addressed Ukrainians late Wednesday after Trump’s “dictator” comments, saying that he will meet envoy Keith Kellogg on Thursday and that he hopes for “constructive” work with the US, after Donald Trump lashed out against the Ukrainian leader on social media.
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“We are scheduled to meet with General Kellogg tomorrow, and it is very important for us that the meeting and our work with America in general be constructive,” Zelensky said
“Together with America and Europe, peace can be more reliable, and this is our goal. And the main thing is that this is not only our goal, but a common goal with our partners,” he added.
The Ukrainian leader also said that the world’s most powerful – in an apparent allusion to Trump – face the “choice” of being with the Kremlin or for peace:
“The future is not with Putin, but with peace. And it is a choice for everyone in the world – and for the powerful – to be with Putin or with peace. We should choose peace. I thank everyone for their support.”
He said he is “counting on Ukrainian unity” as well as the “unity of Europe” and the “pragmatism of America.”
Zelensky also said that Ukraine has wanted an end to the war from “the very first second that” Russia invaded in February 2022 and that he wants a peace deal that will ensure Moscow will not attack again.
“I am confident that we will end it, and with a lasting peace. And so that Russia cannot come to Ukraine again, and so that Ukrainians return from Russian captivity, and so that Ukraine has a future. This is a normal desire of every nation,” he said.
Europe reacts
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz slammed Trump’s decision to label Zelensky a dictator. “It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelensky democratic legitimacy,” Scholz told Der Spiegel, adding that Zelensky is Ukraine’s elected head of state: “That proper elections cannot be held in the middle of a war is in accordance with the requirements of the Ukrainian constitution and electoral laws.”
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also hit back at Trump’s comments, branding them “absurd.” “If you look at the real world instead of just firing off a tweet, then you know who in Europe has to live in the conditions of a dictatorship: people in Russia, people in Belarus,” Baerbock told broadcaster ZDF.
Earlier, Berlin had also pushed back against Trump’s claim that Kyiv had “started” the fighting. “No one but Putin started or wanted this war in the heart of Europe,” Baerbock said in a statement, adding that “we are working with all our might to further strengthen Ukraine.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer Wednesday assured Zelensky of his support as well.
“The Prime Minister spoke to President Zelensky this evening and stressed the need for everyone to work together,” said a Downing Street statement. Starmer “expressed his support for President Zelensky as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader and said that it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War II.”
“The Prime Minister reiterated his support for the US-led efforts to get a lasting peace in Ukraine that deterred Russia from any future aggression,” it said.
French President Emmanuel Macron shared Wednesday on X: “The position of France and its allies is clear and united. We wish for peace in Ukraine that is lasting.”
US-Russia talks
Trump’s comments came after the US and Russian foreign ministers held talks in Saudi Arabia – their first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 – on resetting relations and finding a way to end the conflict. Talks that Kyiv was not invited to attend.
“I believe that the United States helped Putin to break out of years of isolation,” Zelensky told the reporters. “All of this has no positive impact on Ukraine,” he added. Zelensky also said he wanted to get solid security guarantees from Kyiv’s Western partners that would enable the war with Russia to end in 2025. “We want security guarantees this year because we want to end the war this year.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised Trump for criticizing Zelensky, with the Russian top diplomat branding the Ukrainian president “pathetic,” state media reported Wednesday.
Putin, meanwhile, said he rated the bilateral talks in Saudi Arabia “highly.” “We made the first step to restore work in various areas of mutual interests,” he told journalists, while visiting a drone manufacturing plant in his native Saint Petersburg.
On Wednesday, he said that Russia and the United States needed to “trust” each other if talks were to be successful. “It is impossible to solve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, without increasing the level of trust between Russia and the United States,” he said.
Zelensky said he will meet US envoy Keith Kellogg on Thursday and that he hopes for “constructive” work with the US: “We are scheduled to meet with General Kellogg tomorrow, and it is very important for us that the meeting and our work with America in general be constructive,” Zelensky said in his daily evening address on Wednesday.