President Donald Trump continued his attack against Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections” during remarks in Miami.
Following Tuesday’s historic Russia-United States talks in Saudi Arabia, Trump said Zelenskyy “better move fast or he’s not going to have a country left” while speaking at the Future Investment Institute.
MORE: Fact check: No, Zelenskyy doesn’t have 4% approval as Trump claims; it’s over 50%
The statements echoed a post he made earlier Wednesday on Truth Social, in which Trump called the Ukrainian president a “Dictator without Elections,” without evidence, and wrote that Zelenskyy “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
The U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh — to which Ukraine was not invited — represented “an important step forward” toward ending Russia’s three-year invasion of its neighbor, according to a State Department readout.
Hours after the talks concluded on Tuesday, Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that Zelenskyy’s public approval rating was “down to 4%,” failing to provide a source for the figure. Russian President Vladimir Putin has also repeatedly framed Zelenskyy as illegitimate, citing the postponement of the country’s 2024 presidential elections due to martial law.
PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Feb. 15, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Zelenskyy hit back at Trump’s call for the country to hold fresh presidential elections during a Wednesday press conference in Kyiv. He challenged Trump’s claim, pointing to respected recent surveys showing him polling consistently above 50% with voters and describing Trump’s assertion as Russian “disinformation.”
“If someone wants to replace me right now, then right now it won’t work,” Zelenskyy said. “If we are talking about 4% then we have seen this disinformation, we understand that it comes from Russia. And we have evidence.”
The Ukrainian president said he would conduct opinion polls for trust ratings for world leaders, including Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Zelenskyy said he took Trump’s comments “calmly.”
“As for President Trump, with all due respect to him as a leader of the American people, who we deeply respect and are thankful for all his support, but President Trump, unfortunately, is living in this disinformation space,” Zelenskyy continued.
Trump additionally claimed on Wednesday that the U.S. has invested $350 billion on aid for Ukraine and spent $200 billion more than Europe, which is inaccurate.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, based in Germany, estimates that the U.S. has committed about $119 billion in aid for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022. This figure combines military, financial and humanitarian assistance.
In comparison, Europe has allocated approximately EUR 267 billion, or approximately $278 billion, according to the Kiel Institute.
“European donors have been the main source of aid to Ukraine since 2022, especially when it comes to financial and humanitarian aid,” the Kiel Institute said.
Russia reacts
Dmitry Medvedev, a top lieutenant of Putin and former Russian president, expressed the amazement felt by the Kremlin following Trump’s remarks on Truth Social calling Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections.”
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud,” Medvedev wrote on X, adding that Trump is “200 percent right. Bankrupt clown…,” referring to Zelenskyy.
Putin — in his first public comments since the talks — said on Wednesday he had been informed of the results of the meeting in Riyadh, and that the meeting “passed in a very well-meaning manner in general.”
“As our participants told me, those were absolutely different people on the American side, who were open to a negotiating process, without any bias and without any disapproval of what’s been done in the past. At least there was none of that during the bilateral contacts,” Putin said.
The Russian leader said the talks were intended as a trust-building exercise, which produced positive outcomes, saying the “purpose of this meeting was to elevate confidence between Russia and the U.S.”
US and Russia agree to try to end war without Ukraine at the table
Putin also said he would be happy to meet with Trump in person, though he did not offer any information on when such a meeting might occur.
“It must be prepared. I would gladly meet with Donald, I have not seen him for a long time. We don’t have any close relations, but still, we have met in past years, in the four years of his presidency, and discussed relations between our states in a very level way. I would be glad to meet him now, too. And I think he would, too,” Putin said.
In Riyadh on Tuesday, the U.S. and Russia agreed to appoint as-yet-unnamed special representatives to continue peace talks, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Addressing the Russian parliament on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — who led Moscow’s team in Riyadh — told lawmakers “the atmosphere is positive, the intentions are correct, we will see how the situation develops further, what decisions will be made.”
“The main thing is to meet, listen and hear, make decisions that will be realistic,” he added.
World leaders react
After Trump called Zelenskyy a dictator, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Trump’s remarks were “simply wrong and dangerous,” and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre called the remarks “unjust.”
Other reactions flooded in from around the globe.
English Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who spoke to Zelenskyy on Wednesday, expressed support for Ukraine while stressing the need for everyone to work together to find a resolution to the war.
Starmer said “it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War II,” according to a press release from his office.
President of Czechia Petr Pavel posted on X, saying that the accusation “requires a great deal of cynicism.”
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Europe needs to “wake up” from the “geopolitical and economic lethargy into which it has unfortunately fallen for some time.”
“Unfortunately, recent developments and this different view of things from the United States now oblige us not only to face the truth, but to move at a very high speed and implement decisions that we have been discussing for a long time,” he said, after virtually attending a meeting of mainly European leaders hosted by France on Ukraine.
Finnish President Petteri Orpo also formally expressed support for Ukraine.
Trump’s Ukraine-Russia envoy in Ukraine
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov told the state-controlled Channel One television channel that Trump’s Ukraine-Russia envoy — Keith Kellogg — would negotiate a settlement with Kyiv and European nations.
Kellogg arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday morning, where he was expected to hold talks with Ukrainian leaders.
Kellogg told reporters his “mission is to sit and listen” and then report back to Trump. He parried questions about whether Trump is siding with Putin, saying Trump wants to end the war because “he understands the human suffering” it’s causing.
Kellogg said he agrees with Trump that the war would never have begun if he had been president at the time.
Kellogg met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte earlier this week before traveling to Ukraine. Zelenskyy said he discussed the meeting with Rutte on Wednesday.
“The key messages align with our goal of achieving guaranteed peace, not just a temporary ceasefire. There must be confidence that in a few months or years, Putin won’t return with his war,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
“We also discussed our future contacts with partners and coordinated our next steps,” he continued, adding, “We cannot allow Putin to deceive everyone again.”
“Before any potential negotiations, all partners must clearly understand that strong security guarantees are the priority for lasting peace,” Zelenskyy said.
PHOTO: Ukrainian forces search for drones in the sky over Kyiv, Ukraine, during a Russian drone strike on Feb. 18, 2025. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)
Russia launches drone strike on Ukraine in wake of talks
Hours after the U.S.-Russia discussions concluded with a commitment to continue talks, Russia launched a major missile and drone barrage into Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force reported 167 drones and two Iskander ballistic missiles launched into the country, with 106 intercepted and 56 more lost in flight.
Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov reported a “massive enemy strike on a densely populated area of the city” causing electricity, heating and water outages.
Zelenskyy said in a post to social media that the strike targeted “civilian energy facilities,” in keeping with longstanding Russian doctrine. “For nearly three years now, the Russian army has relentlessly used missiles and attack drones against them,” he said.
“Just yesterday, after the notorious meeting in Riyadh, it became clear that Russian representatives were once again lying, claiming they do not target Ukraine’s energy sector,” Zelenskyy continued.
“Yet, almost simultaneously, they launched another attack, with drones striking electrical transformers,” he wrote. “And this is during winter — it was minus 6 degrees Celsius at night.”
“We must never forget that Russia is ruled by pathological liars — they cannot be trusted and must be pressured,” the president said.
Trump says Ukraine has ‘had a seat for 3 years’
Kyiv’s exclusion from the Saudi talks has badly unsettled Ukraine and its European allies. Trump was unapologetic when speaking with reporters Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, just as Odesa came under attack.
“They’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that,” Trump said of Ukraine, suggesting Kyiv could have made a deal with Moscow to avoid the huge loss of lives and land.
Trump said he believes he has “the power to end this war,” while falsely claiming Ukraine started the conflict against Russia. The war began when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, a campaign that followed eight years of cross-border Russian aggression in Crimea and Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
“I think it’s going very well,” Trump said of U.S. efforts to end the war. “But today I heard, oh, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years — you should have never started it.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Zelenskyy criticized the Trump administration’s recent demand for a treaty that would hand over 50% of Ukraine’s natural resources to the U.S., in exchange for no security guarantees. Trump himself has repeatedly said he wants $500 billion worth of Ukraine’s rare minerals to pay back the U.S. for its support during Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskyy said such a demand was “not serious,” and corrected Trump’s claim that the U.S. has provided more money than Europe.
“There wasn’t a word there about security guarantees,” he said. “There is nothing precise there. I can’t sell the state.”
UK ‘ready’ to put troops in Ukraine to support Russia peace deal, PM says
Zelenskyy said that if Ukraine cannot join NATO, it needs a strong army backed by Western weapons and air defense. He said Ukraine was looking for a troop contingent from European countries to help protect Ukraine after a ceasefire, but warned that Ukraine’s own troops needed to be backed by air defense, which only the U.S. can provide.
“Only the Americans, President Donald Trump, have this protection, this air defense, it’s exclusively from them, and that’s what’s important,” Zelenskyy said. “We have a map that shows us this, but we are ready for dialogue, for discussion, about what quantity, how much is needed. We’ve calculated everything; we’ve figured it all out. So this is essentially the main point of what we are requesting.”
Zelenskyy suggested Tuesday that the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh merely revived ultimatums issued by Moscow in the early stages of its invasion.
“I have the impression that there are now some negotiations happening and they have the same mood, but between Russia and the United States,” Zelenskyy said during a visit to Turkey.
“Again, about Ukraine without Ukraine,” he added. “It’s interesting, if Ukraine didn’t yield to ultimatums in the most difficult moment, where does the feeling come from that Ukraine will agree to this now?”
“I never intended to yield to Russia’s ultimatums and I don’t intend to now,” Zelenskyy added.
ABC News’ Fidel Pavlenko, Oleksiy Pshemyskiy, Joe Simonetti, Will Gretsky, Anastasia Bagaeva, Ellie Kaufman and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
Trump calls Zelenskyy ‘dictator’ as Ukraine leader slams him for ‘disinformation’ originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
