Trump calls Zelensky a 'dictator' as he hits back at 'disinformation' criticism | BBC News

president Trump in the last few moments has slammed Ukraine's president zalinski as a dictator without elections uh in the past few minutes he has posted this on his truth social platform let me just take you through some of the detail quite a lengthy post as you can see there uh he says that President zinski refuses to have elections is very low in Ukrainian polls uh he's claiming that president zinski has about a 4% rating uh polls suggest it's 57 % he goes on the only thing he was good at was playing Biden like a fiddle

he then calls president zalinski a dictator without election zinski better move fast or he is not going to have a country left he goes on in the meantime we successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia something all admit only Trump and the Trump Administration can do Biden never tried he claims uh Europe has failed to bring peace and zinski probably wants to keep the gravy train going uh president Trump goes on I Love Ukraine but zinski has done a terrible job his country is shattered and millions have unnecessarily died and so it continues

he also calls Vladimir zilinski a a moderately successful comedian talking America into spending billions of dollars to go into a war that couldn't be one he says the US has spent $200 billion more than Europe and Europe's money is guaranteed while the US will get nothing back well all of this uh happening now as uh a number of discussions continue about the future of Ukraine some of them without Ukraine involved uh in Russia President Vladimir Putin has delivered a pretty positive verdict on Tuesday's talks between the US and Russia those are the talks that took

place in Saudi Arabia saying he rates them highly speaking to reporters earlier Mr Putin said the purpose of that meeting was to increase trust he said he is happy to meet president Trump uh and there has been some indication in Moscow today it could even be as early as this month uh he says he expects Ukraine will take part in talks at some point yes I have been informed I rate them highly there are results the first thing I would like to say is that we have agreed to resume the normal work of diplomatic agencies

the constant expulsion of diplomats from Washington and Moscow does not lead to anything good if this goes on only cleaners will work in these buildings whose work should be also appreciated but this is not what diplomatic missions are created for well Ukraine's leader President Vladimir zalinski had earlier said president Trump was living in a bubble of Russian disinformation Ukraine was excluded from those talks in Saudi Arabia between America and Russian uh officials and here is president zinsky speaking earlier since we are talking about 4% we have seen this disinformation we understand that it is coming

from Russia we understand and we have evidence that these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia it is unfortunate that President Trump and with great respect for him as the leader of the American people who constantly support us unfortunately lives in this disinformation space joining me now our correspondent nomia B who's in Washington and also to V Vitali chevchenko from BBC monitoring who's been following Putin's remarks but first to namia um nomia one of my guests earlier was saying that we uh have to pay attention to what president Trump does rather than what he

says but the does seem to be a war of words at the moment and certainly looking at those latest comments on his truth social platform um what's your analysis of what he said well yeah I think that that's not you know entirely incorrect it's what he does not what he says but what he says is hugely significant do remember he's in his last term uh in office but look I don't think anyone was under the illusion that things were going to be under President Trump as they were under President Biden when it comes to Ukraine

uh his comments are are still pretty extraordinary uh they're very long uh but the fact that it's important to sort of first of all stress that keeve last held a an election in 2019 has been unable able to Stage another one since Russia's Invasion early 2022 but saying he's a dictator without elections is uh quite extraordinary because I don't think that those are words he'd necessarily use about the Russian President Vladimir Putin um in fact I think that's something that has stood out with Donald Trump again it was similar to his first term he seems

to criticize everyone but Putin I mean last week Mr Trump had accused President Joe Biden of starting the war in Ukraine he wants to have this closer alignment to to Russia um I think there was always an expectation that he was going to say something uh he has he's in Miami at the moment on a business meeting but it's not particularly helpful considering he's got his special Envoy to Ukraine Mr Kellogg in the country right now holding talks with Mr zalinski yes Keith Kellogg who says his mission there is to listen to Ukraine's concerns so

a bit of a mismatch between that and what um president Trump is saying what sort of re reaction are you getting there in in the US probably not to these latest comments they've only just happened but what kind of reaction are you seeing there in the U the US especially among Republican politicians to the way president Trump is handling this well the age that has been sent to Ukraine so far was passed by Congress so there is bipartisan support for helping Ukraine there will certainly be Republicans who are uneasy with what Donald Trump is saying

but in terms of them actually saying anything publicly is probably going to be a bit of a stretch the party is incredibly loyal to Donald Trump even more so now uh Democrats on the other hand of course they very different they have been alarmed by what Mr Trump said in in regards to blaming Mr zalinsky for the war Senator Chris Murphy for Connecticut he serves on the foreign uh Relations Committee he said I'm going to quot what he said he accused the president of lying to the American people of essentially rewriting history as I mentioned

Mr Trump last week even accused President Biden of uh starting uh the the war um but I think something that is probably important to add here is that you know foreign policy aside and if you add the domestic angle in Donald Trump campaigned on the promise to end the war in Ukraine uh just recently I spent a bit of time in Pennsylvania it's a swing state that Donald Trump won uh last year and you know a lot of the voters that I spoke to those who were for Trump those who are against they there was

some overlap in terms of Ukraine most of them saying that they didn't think that the US should continue being involved in Ukraine so so Donald Trump as far as he's concerned he's delivering on a campaign promise but of course this reset of relations with Moscow the concern for Ukraine and Europe is that it might come at a huge cost for Ukraine okay nomia thank you very much let's bring in vital chevchenko from BBC monitoring and Vitali looking at what president Trump has just said what he's been saying in recent days and what uh President Putin

has been saying uh are you seeing any kind of mirroring in the language of the two men uh well Anita it's it's so tempting to speak about what's going on what they're saying in uh superlatives and epithets uh it's it's truly extraordinary uh the the Russian and American positions on Ukraine specifically they're almost perfectly alive mind first we heard uh from Pete hex the um defense secretary uh say that NATO membership for Ukraine ruled out getting territories back ruled out and now Donald Trump is uh saying that Vladimir zalinski is a dictator he lost his

mandate and Ukraine started the war well my my job is to monitor the Russian media and that's what they've been saying for years and it's truly extraordinary to hear that come from Donald Trump now there are opinions and there are also facts of course we can argue about how successful or otherwise vinski was a as a comedian but in terms of U his popularity the opinion polls that that I've seen incredible opinion polls from Ukraine they they suggest that his approval rate ratings uh vadir zinski he enjoys a slightly bigger proov rating than Donald Trump

in America and in terms of um elections Ukrainian law specifically forbids holding presidential parliamentary local elections at a time of War so um these remarks they will come as a shock to to many ukrainians who were also well they'll have a huge issue with uh Donald Trump saying well it's Ukraine that started the war uh in terms of how you uh wrot back from these remarks it's really difficult to imagine an easy way of doing that and it's it's uh it is beginning to look like Ukraine is losing or has lost America as an ally

and what Donald Trump has been saying for days suggests that well he's much friendlier towards well Putin than he is towards Vladimir zinski briefly Vitali what is the Russian media saying in response to all of this give us a sense of that oh they're Overjoyed uh they are saying that this is very good news for us they haven't really Embrace Donald Trump as a friend they're saying that still he still has America's interest at his heart but he's clearly driving a wedge right into the heart of the Western Alliance and one commentator on Russia's uh

channel one says it works for us Vitali thank you very much vital shevchenko and nomia ikbal there in Washington thank you both very much