Former U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of bearing responsibility for Russia’s invasion, while also hinting at a possible meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin later this month.
Speaking to reporters after U.S. and Russian officials held their first round of talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday night, February 18, Trump dismissed complaints that Ukraine was excluded from negotiations aimed at ending the war.
“I believe I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. “Today, I heard, ‘Oh, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been at it for three years. You should have ended it… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine.”
Trump expressed optimism about reaching an agreement following talks in Riyadh, led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “The discussions were very good. Russia wants to do something—they want to stop the savage barbarism,” he remarked.
When asked about supporting Russia’s call for elections in Ukraine as part of a peace deal, Trump claimed—without evidence—that Zelenskyy had an approval rating of just 4% and pointed out that Ukraine’s elections were suspended under martial law.
An opinion poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in December indicated that 52% of respondents trusted Zelenskyy, a drop of 12 percentage points from February.
“Yeah, I would say that, you know, when you want a seat at the table… Wouldn’t the people of Ukraine be asking, ‘When’s the last time we had an election?’” Trump added. “That’s not a Russia thing; that’s coming from me, and from many other countries too.”
Trump’s remarks came shortly after Zelenskyy warned that any peace terms should not be decided by Washington and Moscow without Ukraine’s input. “No decision can be made without Ukraine on how to end the war in Ukraine,” Zelenskyy emphasized during a press conference in Turkiye after talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
