US President Donald Trump on Wednesday denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "a dictator without elections" and said he had better move fast to secure a peace or he would have no country left.
Trump spoke hours after Zelenskiy hit back at his suggestion that Ukraine was responsible for Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion, saying the US president was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble.
"A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskiy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left," Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform.
In response, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said no one could force his country to give in. "We will defend our right to exist," Sybiha said on X.
Zelenskiy's five-year term was supposed to end in 2024 but presidential and parliamentary elections cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022 in response to Russia's invasion.
Zelenskiy, who met Trump's Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Wednesday, said he would like Trump's team to have "more truth" about Ukraine, a day after Trump said Ukraine "should never have started" the conflict with Russia.
The Ukrainian leader said Trump's assertion that his approval rating was just 4% was Russian disinformation and that any attempt to replace him would fail.
"We have evidence that these figures are being discussed between America and Russia. That is, President Trump ... unfortunately lives in this disinformation space," Zelenskiy told Ukrainian TV.
The latest poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, from early February, says 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelenskiy.
Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended US policy on Ukraine and Russia, ending Washington's bid to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine with a Trump-Putin phone call and talks between senior US and Russian officials.
TRUMP-PUTIN MEETING
Trump said he may meet Putin this month. The Kremlin said such a meeting could take longer to prepare but Russia's sovereign wealth fund said it expected a number of US companies to return to Russia as early as the second quarter.
In Moscow, Putin said on Wednesday that Ukraine would not be barred from peace negotiations but success would depend on raising the level of trust between Moscow and Washington.
Putin, speaking a day after Russia and the US held in Saudi Arabia their first talks on how to end the three-year-old conflict, also said it would take time to set up a summit with Trump, which both men have said they want.
"But we are in such a situation that it is not enough to meet to have tea, coffee, sit and talk about the future," Putin said in televised remarks.
"We need to ensure that our teams prepare issues that are extremely important for both the United States and Russia, including - but not only - on the Ukrainian track, in order to reach solutions acceptable to both sides," he said.
Ukraine and European governments were not invited to Tuesday's talks in the Saudi capital, which magnified their concern that Russia and the United States might cut a deal that ignores their vital security interests.
Putin said no one was excluding Ukraine from talks and that there was therefore no need for a "hysterical" reaction to the US-Russia talks.
Trump says Europe must step up to guarantee any ceasefire deal. Zelenskiy has suggested giving US companies the right to extract valuable minerals in Ukraine in return for US security guarantees, but indicated that Trump was not offering that.
