{"id":673077,"date":"2026-01-04T10:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T10:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673077\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T10:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T10:21:12","slug":"ukraines-zelenskyy-appeals-to-us-after-trumps-capture-of-maduro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673077\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Appeals To US After Trump’s Capture Of Maduro"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ukraine's<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. via Associated Press<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared to issue a call to action to Donald Trump after the US captured Venezuela\u2019s president Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

The States arrested Maduro in his home in the early hours of Saturday and has already indicted him and his wife, Cilia Flores, on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges in New York.<\/p>\n

Trump has also released photos of Maduro, blindfolded and handcuffed, on a plane out of Venezuela, and claimed the US will \u201crun\u201d the South American country until a safe transition of power can take place.<\/p>\n

Asked for his response to this shocking turn of events, Ukraine\u2019s president Zelenskyy said<\/a>: \u201cIf it is possible to deal with dictators like that, just like that, then the United States of America knows what to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was widely seen as a hint Trump should remove Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

But the US president has adopted a very different approach to Putin compared to Maduro since returning to office last year.<\/p>\n

While the Russian autocrat launched an invasion against the American ally Ukraine in February 2022 \u2013 and continues to hold a fifth of its sovereign land \u2013 Trump has rarely criticised the autocrat.<\/p>\n

Throughout the peace process, he has even suggested effectively rewarding Putin for his aggression with giving Russia more of Ukraine\u2019s territory.<\/p>\n

Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska in August too,<\/a> and has repeatedly blamed everyone \u2013 aside from Russia \u2013 for the war.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy has been trying to encourage Trump to take further action against Putin for some time, without alienating the mercurial US leader.<\/p>\n

However, there did seem to be an indication the US president might be turning on Putin over the weekend as Russia continues to drag its feet over peace negotiations.<\/p>\n

During a press conference on the US overthrow of Maduro \u2013 an ally to Russia \u2013 Trump said: \u201cI\u2019m not thrilled with Putin. He\u2019s killing too many people.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, pointing to the high death toll in Ukraine, Trump also alleged the US is \u201cprobably making money\u201d by supporting Nato with weapons and ammunition.<\/p>\n

He claimed \u201cI think we\u2019re making progress\u201d with a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine, but did not offer any further details.<\/p>\n

Trump once promised to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of his second term in office. That was almost a year ago.<\/p>\n

Related…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. via Associated Press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[204812,32,2000,299,37887,60497,657,37367,333,2601],"class_list":{"0":"post-673077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-cilia-flores","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-nicolas-maduro","13":"tag-russia-and-ukraine","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-us-president","16":"tag-vladimir-putin","17":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115836333858038547","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}