KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday hit back at Donald Trump’s accusation that Ukraine started its war with Russia, saying that the American president is trapped in a “disinformation bubble” and adding that his country was not for sale.
The pugnacious response followed Trump’s surprising comments Tuesday that Ukraine was responsible for Russia’s invasion of the country three years ago. Trump also argued that Kyiv could have made a deal to avoid the conflict.
The president added that his Ukrainian counterpart’s approval ratings sat at 4% in Ukraine — despite an opinion poll released Wednesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showing that 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelenskyy.
“As we are talking about 4%, we have seen this disinformation, we understand it’s coming from Russia,” Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv on Wednesday, as he dismissed Trump’s claim.
He added that any attempts to replace him during the war would fail — Trump raised the question of Ukrainian elections following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated assertions that Zelenskyy is not Ukraine’s legitimate leader — contending that the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians would not support concessions to Russia.
“The army is quite resilient, and it is the most resilient in Europe … and it guarantees us the opportunity to speak with dignity and on an equal footing with other partners — allies or non-allies,” Zelenskyy said.
Referring to U.S. support given to Ukraine so far — $67 billion in weapons and $31.5 billion in budgetary support — Zelenskyy said that American demands that Ukraine should hand more than $500 billion in minerals was “not a serious conversation” and added that he cannot sell his country.
Zelenskyy’s statements came the day after Trump responded to remarks the Ukrainian leader had made earlier about not wanting “anyone making decisions behind our backs.”
Speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort late Tuesday, Trump said he believed he had the power to end the war in Ukraine, “but today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years.”
“You should have never started it,” he added. “You could have made a deal.”
The reaction in Moscow to the broader change in direction of U.S. foreign policy has been more upbeat. Speaking to Russian lawmakers Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not directly address Trump’s comments but suggested the Kremlin was pleased with talks so far.
The U.S. president is “the first, and so far, apparently, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the brazen path of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO,” Lavrov said. “No Western leader has ever said this.”
“This is already a signal that he understands our position,” Lavrov added, in a speech that covered the broader second Trump administration rather than the president’s specific remarks Tuesday.
The Kremlin will also have been pleased with Trump’s comment that Ukrainians may be asking about the status of the country’s next election.
In doing so, Trump echoed the criticisms of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia for all but four of the past 25 years, but has repeatedly questioned the electoral legitimacy of Zelenskyy’s continuing leadership.
Ukraine last held a presidential election in 2019 and was due to have one last April, but Zelenskyy has said in the past that it is not possible for Ukrainians to go to the polls in wartime and that view is also backed up by the country’s constitution.
Trump’s comments on Zelenskyy’s approval ratings follow the release earlier this month of a Pew Research Center poll showing that 47% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance to some extent.
In Kyiv, meanwhile, ordinary Ukrainians reiterated their support for Zelenskyy, while keeping an anxious eye on the rapprochement between Trump and Putin.
“I don’t like Trump’s flirting with Putin,” said 49-year-old Fedir Logvynenko. “I don’t quite understand whether it’s from great intelligence or from complete incompetence.”
He added that he agreed with Zelenskyy’s position of refusing to “accept an agreement on Ukraine without Ukraine,” also reserving criticism for Ukraine’s European allies.
While accusing Europe’s leaders of “indecision” and “weakness,” Logvynenko said that Ukraine had “no other way than to build an alliance with Europe, outside of NATO, or rather, on the remnants of NATO.”
Yuliya Antonyuk, a 42-year-old real estate agent, meanwhile, said that “we couldn’t cope without American weapons and support.”
“I want people to stop dying every day. I want to sleep calmly,” she said, adding that it would be “impossible” to hold presidential elections in the country given the current conditions “as there is shelling all the time.”
