by Mick the Ram

After counting on the strong support of the United States during the three year war with Russia, it will have suddenly become clear to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the previously enjoyed backing is no longer there.

This comes after US President Donald Trump launched a shocking personal attack on Mr Zelensky calling him a “dictator” amongst many other things.

He also made accusations relating to Mr Zelensky’s “refusal to have elections”, his “low position in the polls”, suggested that his popularity had only “a 4% approval rating”, and most incredibly of all, he referenced that it was “Ukraine who STARTED the war, not the Russians” – all facts that are plainly untrue.

It follows a reaction from the Ukrainian chief to US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia from which Kyiv was excluded, after which the Ukraine president said Mr Trump was “living in a disinformation space” governed by Moscow.

Mr Trump is known for his extremely “thin” skin when it comes to anything he might regard as a criticism of himself and like anyone used to getting their own way, reacts aggressively.

Possibly closer to the trigger point might be the refusal by Mr Zelensky to sign off on a “deal” to grant the US access to rare-earth minerals from Ukraine, which Mr Trump seemed to assume was a “done-deal” but with no specific security guarantees in the agreement, the Ukraine leader told his aids to reject the proposal.

The slurs delivered against Mr Zelensky by the American president quickly prompted criticism from Europe, including the leaders of the UK, Germany, and France.

Is it really only one month?

It is hard to believe that it is only one month since Donald Trump took over leadership of the US and anyone who believed that he might have eased himself in gently, could not have been further from the truth.

It was clear that voters wanted change, but they absolutely did not vote for the chaos that has ensued.

Controversial from the first minute

Immediately after being sworn in, Mr Trump signed off dozens of executive orders aimed at cracking down on immigration, freezing federal and foreign funding, and placing the controversial figure of Elon Musk in charge of overhauling government agencies.

This lead to mass firings, access to personal data, bulk buyouts and the near-complete shut down of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

He has also been busy reformatting NATO, and tackling conflicts in Gaza and this week concentrating more towards the war in Ukraine.  

All change

Under the previous Joe Biden administration, the US were one of Ukraine’s closest allies, providing the country with tens of billions worth of military aid.

That has all changed in a matter of weeks under Mr Trump who has made it clear that he thinks his country should significantly pull back unless they get something substantial in return.

Not only that, Mr Trump decided it was time to “tell it as it is” or at least how he believes it is, when he tore into Mr Zelensky with some astonishing insults and completely inaccurate assumptions.

Disgraceful comments

Much of what Mr Trump was speaking about appeared to mirror Kremlin comments and come only days after Trump and Vladimir Putin talked at length.

Mr Trump remarked that the Ukrainian leader “was really good at playing Joe Biden like a fiddle,” before suggesting that it was the Ukrainians who actually started the war, and even called Mr Zelensky a “dictator”.

Unaware of the true facts?

“You should have never started it,” Mr Trump declared, failing to accept that Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, having already annexed Crimea in 2014.

Putin began a massive build-up of troops on its border with Ukraine in late 2021, stating that the aim of the operation was to “demilitarise and denazify” the pro-Western government of Volodymyr Zelensky and prevent the country from joining Nato, failing to appreciate that the Ukrainian president is Jewish and that his party has been regarded as centrist.

Insult after insult

Mr Trump spoke of how Zelensky had done “a terrible job” and as a result millions had died. He suggested that the war could have been settled very easily years ago and attempted to make an issue out of his popularity, claiming he had only a 4% approval rating, when in actual fact a truer percentage is around 57%.

Continuing, the American president told a watching audience, “He refuses to have elections, he’s low in the real Ukrainian polls – how can you be high with every city being demolished?”

Not familiar with martial laws?

Mr Zelensky’s first five-year term of office was due to come to an end in May 2024. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since the Russian invasion in February 2022, which means elections are suspended.

The Ukraine’s martial laws were drafted in 2015 – shortly after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and years before Zelensky and his Servant of the People party came to power.

Some experts have observed that holding elections in Ukraine before the conflict ends would be practically impossible, as Russian attacks on many cities persist and millions of citizens are displaced abroad or living under Russian occupation.

Disrespectful and dismissive

The tirade went on as Mr Trump then said: “Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, but that never had to start.”

Mr Trump also took aim at Europe, saying the war is “far more important to them than it is to us,” adding that there is a “big, beautiful ocean as a separation.”

Remaining diplomatic

Earlier a diplomatic Mr Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv: “We are seeing a lot of disinformation and it’s coming from Russia, so with all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader… he is living in this disinformation space.”

He added that the world faced the choice to be “with Putin or with peace” but he said he believed the United States “helped Putin to break out of years of isolation”, comments which undoubtedly got under Mr Trump’s skin.

Doesn’t take rejection well

Earlier this month, Mr Trump had suggested the US should get access to Ukraine’s mineral riches in exchange for continuing aid, but the Ukrainian leader clarified that they had been asked to “give away” 50% of its rare minerals, without receiving any form of security guarantees in exchange.

Therefore it was not possible to proceed with the deal in such a form, stating; “I cannot sell our state.”

This was received very badly by Donald Trump who accused Mr Zelinsky of being rude to the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who had travelled to meet him. “He went there by train travelling many hours to get a document signed, and when he got there, he came back empty, because they wouldn’t sign the document.”

Different direction?

Normal Ukrainians were outraged at Trump’s comments, with one accusing the US president of being “a narcissist” and others suggesting that Europe should now intervene and set its own conditions because “wherever America has stepped in, they have done damage and then left, as they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on.”

European leaders unite

Support was forthcoming for Mr Zalensky from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has said he would be willing to send troops to act as peacekeepers in Ukraine.

German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz said: “Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia’s merciless war of aggression for almost three years… and it is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelensky’s democratic legitimacy.”

The Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, called the US president’s comments “absurd”, adding that people should “look at the real world instead of just firing off a tweet then you know who in Europe has to live in the conditions of a dictatorship: people in Russia, people in Belarus.”

French President Emmanuel Macron sounded a word of warning, saying: “Russia poses an existential threat to Europeans; do not think that the unthinkable cannot happen, including the worst.”

Disgust in the states too

The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a statement that to accuse Zelensky of starting the war was “disgusting” and a “deliberate distortion of the truth.”

Mr Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, also had harsh words for his former boss calling president’s comments “some of the most shameful remarks ever made by a U.S. President.”

Non-starter

When digging down in to what Mr Trump had said many are concluding that in essence he seems to be suggesting that the Ukrainians should have made an agreement with Russia to avoid the invasion.

If they had, it would have involved submitting to a puppet government in their capital who would have been loyal to Moscow, or alternatively simply giving up the fight and hand a win to Putin.