‘Unacceptable’: US rebukes Zelensky for ‘insulting’ Trump after US President calls Ukraine’s leader a ‘dictator’
The United States has lashed out at Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky for “insulting” Donald Trump after a week when the allies have split.
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The United States has lashed out at Volodymyr Zelensky for, in its view, “badmouthing” Donald Trump, calling the Ukrainian President’s rhetoric “unacceptable”.
We are approaching the end of a week in which Mr Trump seemed to turn, perhaps irrecovably, against Ukraine. He has repeatedly insulted Mr Zelensky, calling him a “dictator” among other things, and has adopted a range of arguments we normally hear from Russia, which invaded its less powerful neighbour in 2022.
For example, Mr Trump has suggested Mr Zelensky is an illegitimate president because elections have not been held in Ukraine since the invasion began.
The country’s constitution forbids elections when martial law is in effect, which has been the case throughout the war. Ukraine’s parliament has repeatedly approved its extension. And the united stance of all political parties in Ukraine is that elections should be held six months after martial law is lifted.
Mr Trump has never demanded that Putin hold fair and free elections, despite the Russian leader’s long history of cracking down on political dissent.
The day before calling Mr Zelensky a dictator, Mr Trump accused him – not Russia – of being responsible for the war, arguing Ukraine “should have never started” it.
Despite the stream of personal invective flowing so freely, all of a sudden, east across the Atlantic, the White House is now taking issue with Mr Zelensky’s tone. It is irritated by his demand that Ukraine be included in any peace negotiations with Russia, and likely by his claim that Mr Trump is trapped in a “disinformation bubble”.
Ukraine was not present at preliminary negotiations between the United States and Russia in Saudi Arabia this week.
Speaking to reporters today, Mr Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz was blunt.
“Who does (Trump) think is more responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Putin or Zelensky?” asked Fox News reporter Peter Doocy.
“Well look, his goal here is to bring this war to an end. Period,” said Mr Waltz.
“His frustration with President Zelensky, you heard, is multi-fold. One, there needs to be a deep appreciation for what the American people, what the American taxpayer, what President Trump did in his first term, and what we’ve done since.
“Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, and frankly insults to President Trump, were unacceptable.”
He went on to reference Ukraine’s rejection of an American demand for access to the country’s rare minerals, as a sort of payment in return for its support in the war.
At another point, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins sought to follow up on Mr Doocy’s question.
“You wrote in an op-ed in the fall (autumn) of 2023 that, ‘Putin is to blame, certainly like al-Qaeda was to blame for 9/11,’” she told Mr Waltz.
“Do you still feel that way now? Or do you share the President’s assessment that, as he says, Ukraine is to blame for the start of this war?”
“Well, it shouldn’t surprise you that I share the President’s assessment on all kinds of issues,” Mr Waltz responded.
“What I wrote as a former member of Congress – what I share the President’s assessment on is that the war has to end.”
‘It’s just unacceptable’: Trump adviser dissembles
Mr Waltz also popped up for an interview on Fox News today, where he was asked about specific Russian war crimes – such as its abduction and rehoming of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children.
Host Brian Kilmeade was interested in what concessions Russian President Vladimir Putin might have to make to secure American approval for a peace deal. We’ve heard virtually no talk about that all week, despite the negotiations in Saudi Arabia.
“Wouldn’t it be great if the Russians handed back the 20,000 children they stole from the Ukrainian families – renamed them and handed them out to Russians?” he asked.
“Would they ever agree to give the children back?”
Mr Waltz did a spot of rhetorical water-treading in response.
“You know, we talked about what we’re going to have to do in the territory, what we are going to have to do in security guarantees, what we’re going to have to do, kind of, in the future, broader security arrangement, the future of our relationship and those kinds of exchanges, prisoner exchanges, children, what’s happened in some of these areas,” he said.
“All of that, you know, should be resolved. And we are trying to resolve it.
“But for everyone to just throw their hands up and say, ‘Well, we don’t like what they’re doing, but we don’t have a plan either.’ It’s just unacceptable.”
Vice President mocks ‘moralistic garbage’
Meanwhile, US Vice President J.D. Vance got himself into a spat, on Twitter, with the conservative British-American historian Niall Ferguson.
Mr Vance took issue with Mr Ferguson (Sir Niall, if you prefer stuffy British titles) for sharing a quote from former president George H.W. Bush, a Republican, condemning Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
“This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression,” Mr Bush said of the invasion.
“Future history students will be asked why this stopped being the reaction of a Republican president to the invasion of a sovereign state by a dictator,” said Mr Ferguson.
Mr Vance fired back at the historian in a lengthy Twitter post of his own.
“This is moralistic garbage, which is unfortunately the rhetorical currency of the globalists because they have nothing else to say,” said the Vice President.
“For three years, President Trump and I have made two simple arguments. First, the war would not have started if President Trump was in office. Second, that neither Europe, nor the Biden administration, nor the Ukrainians had any pathway to victory.
“This was true three years ago, it was true two years ago, and it is true today.”
He went on to wonder whether Mr Ferguson had “an actual plan for Ukraine”.
“Another aid package?” Mr Vance asked, with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“Is he aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?
“Instead, he quotes from a book about George H.W. Bush from a different historical period and a different conflict. That’s another currency of these people: reliance on irrelevant history.
“President Trump is dealing with reality, which means dealing with facts.
“We must pursue peace, and we must pursue it now. President Trump ran on this, he won on this, and he is right about this. It is lazy, ahistorical nonsense to attack as ‘appeasement’ every acknowledgment that America’s interest must account for the realities of the conflict.”
Mr Ferguson replied with something of a peace offering, agreeing with Mr Vance that “the war would not have happened” if Mr Trump had won the US election in 2020.
“I supported his campaign for re-election last year, consistently predicted his and your victory, and welcomed the ‘vibe shift’ that victory represented. I have also supported the President’s previous calls to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine. So I am not sure I really qualify as a globalist,” said Mr Ferguson.
“But I simply cannot understand the logic of beginning a negotiation this difficult by conceding so many crucial points to Russia.”
He noted that the United States appeared to have conceded, before proper negotiations “have even begun”, that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO and will not recover swathes of its territory already in Russian hands – essentially granting two of Russia’s chief goals, pre-emptively, in return for nothing.
“Correct me if I am wrong,” he said.
“On Wednesday, President Trump accused Ukraine of having ‘started it’, meaning the war. He also cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Zelensky’s government.
“It is not ‘moralistic garbage’ but a hard and realistic lesson of history that wars are easy to start and hard to end.
“I earnestly hope that the Trump administration can negotiate an end to this war. But if we end up with a peace that dooms Ukraine first to partition and then to some future invasion, it will be a sorry outcome.”
Top conservative calls Trump’s stance ‘un-American’
Another figure who is usually very much on Donald Trump’s side, the conservative American broadcaster Mark Levin, spent a significant chunk of his radio show today running through the history of Putin’s crimes.
He then turned to an implicit critique of the US President’s stance on Ukraine, albeit without naming Mr Trump directly, and a defence of Mr Zelensky.
“Zelensky ordered martial law. That’s what the constitution there compelled. Zelensky hasn’t called for an election. That’s what the constitution there compels,” said Mr Levin.
“Now, I’m waiting for the first free election for Vladimir Putin. I mean, this is almost comical, in a sick way, that Putin is demanding an election. Why is he demanding an election in Ukraine when he doesn’t have free and real elections in his own country? And why does he get to call the shots when, in fact, he murders people who dare to challenge him?”
Mr Levin went on to express his confusion and frustration regarding people who “not only oppose Zelensky, but seem to support Putin”. He accused those folks of supporting “policies that, in many ways, are un-American”.
“Zelensky’s latest poll, he’s at 57 per cent. The parliament, all parties in the parliament, support what he’s doing. They’re trying to survive. Ukraine did not invade Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine.
“They didn’t start this war. What were they supposed to do? Roll over and play dead?”
Twitter: @SamClench
Originally published as ‘Unacceptable’: US rebukes Zelensky for ‘insulting’ Trump after US President calls Ukraine’s leader a ‘dictator’
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