Trump turns against Zelensky – and towards Russia – as US-Ukraine ties fray
Trump calls Zelensky ‘a dictator without elections’, deepening a feud between the two leaders
Tensions had bubbled for days over Trump’s sudden decision to open talks with Moscow while excluding Ukraine, before they boiled over into an extraordinary war of words between the two leaders.
But it was not just the sudden rift with Kyiv’s biggest backer that was most worrying for Ukraine and its European allies – it was the way that Trump has started openly echoing many of Moscow’s favourite talking points about the war.
When Trump talked about how Ukraine started the war, quoted false figures about Zelensky’s popularity, urged him to call elections and ruled out Nato membership, analysts said it would all have sounded suspiciously familiar to many in Kyiv.
“It looks like he’s preparing a big sell-out of Ukraine,” Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said.
Bergmann said Trump seemed to be “creating a predicate for the United States to simply wash its hands of supporting Ukraine, and to focus on having a relationship with Moscow”.