(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit back on Wednesday at Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine was responsible for Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, saying the U.S. president was trapped in a Russian disinformation bubble.
Speaking ahead of talks with Trump’s Ukraine envoy a day after Trump said Ukraine “should never have started” the conflict, Zelenskiy said he would like Trump’s team to have “more truth” about Ukraine.
The Ukrainian leader said Trump’s assertion that his approval rating was just 4% was Russian disinformation and that any attempt to replace him would fail.
“We have evidence that these figures are being discussed between America and Russia. That is, President Trump … unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelenskiy told Ukrainian TV.
Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended U.S. policy on Ukraine and Russia, ending Washington’s bid to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine with a Trump-Putin phone call and talks between senior U.S. and Russian officials.
Trump said he may meet Putin this month. The Kremlin said such a meeting could take longer to prepare but Russia’s sovereign wealth fund said it expected a number of U.S. companies to return to Russia as early as the second quarter.
The U.S.-Russia talks on ending the war in Ukraine have excluded both Ukraine and Europe, which Trump says must step up to guarantee any ceasefire. Zelenskiy has suggested giving U.S. companies the right to extract valuable minerals in Ukraine in return for U.S. security guarantees, but indicated that Trump was not offering that.
Zelenskiy told a press conference the U.S. had given Ukraine $67 billion in weapons and $31.5 billion in budget support, and that American demands for $500 billion in minerals are “not a serious conversation”, and that he could not sell his country.
He was expected to meet visiting U.S. Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, who said as he arrived in Kyiv that he expected substantial talks as the war approaches its three-year mark.
“We understand the need for security guarantees,” Kellogg told journalists, saying that part of his mission would be “to sit and listen”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lauded Trump for saying that previous U.S. support of Ukraine’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.
EUROPE PREPARES NEW SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA
Trump’s U.S. policy reversal puts it at odds with allies in the 27-member European Union, whose envoys on Wednesday agreed on a 16th package of sanctions against Russia, including on aluminum and vessels believed to be carrying sanctioned Russian oil.
France said it did not understand the logic of Trump’s comments that Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s invasion.
French President Emmanuel Macron was set to have an informal meeting on Ukraine with some European leaders and NATO ally Canada at 4 p.m. (1500 GMT), following a similar meeting with Britain, Italy, Germany, Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands and the European Union on Monday.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that while there was no complete agreement in the 27-nation EU on how to move forward, countries had managed to accomplish a lot.
“We need to keep a cool head and continue to support Ukraine,” he said.
Russia has seized control of around a fifth of Ukraine and regularly launches attacks on towns and cities far beyond the 1,000-km (600-mile) front line across the country’s east and south, where it is pushing hard to gain more territory.
Zelenskiy said Russia had launched a barrage of drones on the southern city of Odesa on Wednesday, injuring four people, including a child, and hitting energy infrastructure. At least 160,000 people were left without heating in sub-zero temperatures, he said.
Russia says its attacks on Ukraine’s energy system are designed to undermine the country’s military. It says it does not deliberately target civilians, although thousands have been killed in the conflict.
In the village of Novopavlivkia near the front line, homes scarred by guided bombs line once-quiet streets that now serve as key routes for Ukrainian armored vehicles. Helicopters buzz low overhead and a constant din of explosions and heavy machine gun fire can be heard.
Former village head Mykola Havrylov said he was dismayed that Ukraine’s Western partners had not provided more urgent military and diplomatic support as the Russians close in.
“I don’t understand it, and I think I’m not the only one,” he said.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Tom Balmforth, Anastasiia Malenko, Max Hunder and Yuliia Dysa in Kyiv, Vitalii Hnidyi and Valentyn Orirenko in Novopavlivka; writing by Philippa Fletcher; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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