Tap for article
Trump calls Zelenskyy a ‘dictator’ as US rift with Ukraine deepens
US president warns Ukrainian leader he ‘better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left’
Donald Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator” and warned that he “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left”, in a deepening rift between the two leaders.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, the US President hit out at his Ukrainian counterpart hours after Zelenskyy accused Trump of living in a “disinformation bubble” and disputed his $500bn bill for aid to Kyiv.
The bitter exchange comes after Trump upended decades of US policy by convening bilateral talks with Moscow on the Ukraine war without inviting Kyiv and blaming Zelenskyy for the 2022 Russian invasion.
In his most overt threat yet to end the war on terms favourable to Moscow, Trump wrote: “A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
He added that Zelenskyy had “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won”.
Speaking in Kyiv earlier on Wednesday, Zelenskyy, who was sidelined this week from high-profile talks between the US and Russia in Riyadh over the conflict, blasted Trump for pushing “a lot of disinformation coming from Russia”.
“Unfortunately, President Trump, with all due respect for him as the leader of a nation that we respect greatly . . . is living in this disinformation bubble,” he said.
He made his comments as Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the US-Russian rapprochement and argued that European leaders had excluded themselves from the talks.
Zelenskyy’s retort was prompted by Trump’s remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Tuesday, in which the US president falsely claimed Kyiv had started the conflict, the largest on European soil since the second world war.
Trump added he was “very disappointed” that Ukraine was “upset about not having a seat” at Tuesday’s talks in Saudi Arabia.
“Today I heard: ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited’,” the US president said. “Well, you’ve been there for three years . . . you should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
Zelenskyy’s comments came a day after the US and Russia agreed to “lay the groundwork for future co-operation” on ending the war, in their first high-profile talks since Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.
Amid a dramatic reversal of decades of US policy towards Russia, Trump last week announced that he had spoken to Putin about ending the Ukraine war, without consulting Kyiv or its European allies.
In his first comments since his conversation with Trump, Putin said he “highly appreciates” the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia, which he said “made the first step to resuming our work on all sorts of issues of mutual interest”.
“The US negotiators were totally different — they were open to a negotiating process without any biases or judgments about what was done in the past,” he said. “They intend to work together.”
Putin said Russia would not “speculate” on US-European relations, but claimed EU leaders had “insulted” Trump during his election campaign and said “they are themselves at fault for what is happening”.
Putin said he would meet Trump “with pleasure” but that any summit required substantial preparation.
On Wednesday, Zelenskyy pushed back against Trump’s suggestion that elections should be held in Ukraine, after the US president claimed that his Ukrainian counterpart had an approval rating of just 4 per cent.
Pointing to polling from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which in February found that 57 per cent of Ukrainians trusted their president, Zelenskyy said: “So if anyone wants to replace me right now, that will not work.”
Putin has long sought regime change in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president also disputed Trump’s claim that Ukraine owed the US $500bn worth of rare minerals and other resources for past military assistance.
Kyiv has spent $320bn on its war efforts against Russia, with $200bn coming from international military assistance, Zelenskyy said.
“The United States has contributed approximately $60bn so far, with an additional $31.5 billion in financial assistance,” he said. “That’s $67bn in weaponry and $31.5bn in direct budgetary support.”
US state department data broadly supports Zelenskyy’s figure for US military support for Ukraine.
Fix your fucking country, Americans. I'm legit getting a nervous eye twitch from reading the news these days.
I'm sorry but there isn't going to be a big moment any time soon unless he tries to stop the 2026 elections or does something like declaring martial law. There's a good possibility there will be 4 more years of this.
I think Trump will try to amend the 22nd Amendment and he will become dictator of the US.
Good luck? He needs ~~75~~ 66 votes in the Senate just to start.
Edit - I hate fractions. It's mutual.
Bro have you not been paying attention? The new administration is governing without any respect for the law, they just do things and say they’re all powerful. And so far, nobody is stopping them. Nobody really has the power to, anyway.
Nobody but The People
They're claiming a bunch of things but all they've actually managed is data access, a money stop, and firings. The big claims are being tested in court right now.
You are making way more assumptions about functioning government than recent trends would predict.
He's consolidating all power in the executive. All bets are off on anything functioning the way it's "supposed" to.
There's a giant difference between hiring and firing in the civil service and declaring a new Constitutional Amendment without Congress or the States approving it.
He's reinstating corrupt officials. He's piling in sycophants into every corner of the government. He's declaring he alone has the ability to interpret laws. He's killing major federal departments. He's ignoring policy. He's ignoring court orders. He's literally calling himself a king.
We are way, way beyond "firing civil servants", and it is just going to get worse.
I don't think he will amend the constitution. I think at the moment it doesn't matter and it will be ignored. We are now actively in the greatest constitutional crisis in American history.
Understand that the shit has gotten very, very real. All this other stuff that we've counted on all our lives is gone unless something massive happens REALLY SOON.
I agree the biggest constitutional crisis of our life is already underway. I do not agree that we've reached the panic stage. Protest, organize, and be ready to vote in 2026. That's what we do right now.
A piece of paper means nothing if people with guns disregard it.
There's more guns than people in this country. Picking up a gun to disregard paper is a very dangerous game.
We know, you Americans can't stop talking about it.
But Americans also claim that all those guns are supposed to keep the government from getting corrupt and taking away their rights.
I don't see the most corrupted government in your country's history being scared to act because of all those armed citizens.
That's because it's also the silver spoon brigade who've never faced a consequence a day in their life.
Is it? There have barely been any protests on the streets. People are infinitely far away from violently rising up against this regime.
Maybe where you are? I've seen several since the beginning of the month. And nobody should be doing violence right now. We do not have the organization, moral high ground, or legitimacy for that.
Do not count on that. Him and his fellow traitors are capable to things you can't even imagine.
I don't know, I've studied coups and I have a pretty active imagination. In fact I generally have to calm myself down. Which is part of why I know the minutia here.
The end run would be a Saddam Hussein moment, where he had members of his legislature arrested for treason while they were gathered for a speech by him. The particulars wouldn't necessarily match but the idea would be to reduce the Senate to it's quorum number and hold the vote then.
The problem with that course of action is 2/3 of the states must then also vote for it. And that's not a realistic scenario. Especially if he tries to conduct mass arrests to affect the number of sitting legislators there too. Because at that point he's lost all legitimacy and triggered massive protests or a civil war. At which point we refer to case G anyways. (The Go To Hell plan, when everything fails)
Note - it is 66 Senators, not 75. I hate fractions.
at the rate the Senate's spine is deteriorating i suspect it to slip by their scoliotic corpse within a couple years.
If that happens then yeah the country is cooked. But it's not very likely.
I admire your baseless optimism.
Optimism makes the world go round. Nobody goes to the illegal declaration of Independence convention without optimism. Nobody marches in the street without optimism.
Having that possibility, that hope, is the core of making shit happen. Pessimism shuts shit down before it even begins. Realism can at least lead to doing a duty you're pretty sure will kill you.
Is that regardless of like 20% of democrats being assassinated? Could they get the numbers if enough of the no votes are eliminated?
If they outright kill legislators en masse then Trump better be heading to a bunker staffed by loyalists. Because he just blew the air horn to start a civil war, with exactly zero moral high ground or legitimacy.
They would simply blame Mexicans and DEI. Use it to garner more power. Who would be able to stop them, or prosecute in any meaningful way?
We would. That's where the people have to step up. The military would. Political leaders not aligned with trump would.