Kyiv to Washington: Explain Your Game Plan!

"If anyone wants to replace me right now, then it just isn't going to happen."

"I wish Trump's team had more truth. Because none of this is having a positive effect on Ukraine."

"[Claims from Trump that ratings stood at four percent is disinformation] coming from Russia."

"Since we are talking about 4 percent, we have seen this disinformation, we understand that it is coming from Russia. We understand this, and we have evidence that these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia."

"President Trump, with great respect for him as a leader of the people (...) unfortunately, lives in this disinformation space."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Zelenskyy says Trump 'living in disinformation space' created by Russia

 

"Well, we have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine; where we have martial law, essentially martial law, in Ukraine; where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% percent approval rating."

"He [Zelensky] refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden 'like a fiddle'. A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left...I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died."  

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

President Donald Trump speaks during the signing of executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday.   Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

The verbal jousting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy has resonated deeply in Ukraine. Ukrainians who have been chafing at the ongoing conflict that Russia imposed on it, finding fault with their president's positions have now been unified with those of their compatriots who find the president doing all that can possibly be done in defence of their country amid the conflict, and his unstinting efforts in the international diplomatic field to bring together staunch supporters and allies, imploring them to aid Ukraine in its existential struggle against the territorial ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

Assertions by Donald Trump of the Ukrainian President's failures in the field of popularity among Ukrainians, faulting him for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine that has displaced millions of Ukrainian citizens, levelled huge swaths of Ukrainian infrastructure, killed or wounded hundreds of thousands have not been well received by the Ukrainian population at large. Nor has most of Europe been impressed by the statesmanship of the leader of the most powerful country in the world, who has suddenly once again turned against America's traditional allies and found common ground with Vladimir Putin's Russia.

"Today I heard, 'Oh, we weren't invited'."

"Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it."

"You should have never started it."

"You could have made a deal."

Trump taunting Zelenskyy 

Ukraine, held President Trump, must hold elections. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Ukraine's premier polling organization, published a survey concluding that 57 percent of Ukrainians place their trust in Zelenskyy. Trump's election call for Ukraine and erroneous claims of  low approval ratings echo Vladimir Putin's attacks on the legitimacy of the Ukrainian leader whose Churchillian performance has been outstanding, has become a matter of confused conjecture over Mr. Trump's logic and comprehension of the Russian invasion leading to its occupation of a sixth of Ukraine.

 

Transposing Russia's own flawed election results and the manipulation of Vladimir Putin's changes engineered to alter the Russian constitution in 2021, to enable Putin to remain power up to 2036, appears to have escaped the American President's notice in his tirade against a democratically elected president in Ukraine with a high trust rating among his electorate.  Moreover, charging Ukraine with 'starting' the war is a direct quote from Vladimir Putin that Russia had 'no choice' but to attack Ukraine as a matter of self-defence.

 

"It sounds like there was a handout prepared by Lavrov given to Rubio, and now they're just reading it", remarked former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis. A situation alerting Europe that the alliances the West has been dependent on for mutual security since World War II appear to be unraveling. "Diverse, varied and often incomprehensible", is how French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas characterized Trump's remarks. "We do not understand the American logic very well."

"I would love to meet with Donald. It's been a long time since we've seen each other. I would love to meet with him now as well. I think he will, too", chortled President Putin, praising the meetings between the U.S. and Russian diplomats in Riyadh as 'friendly', describing how different the U.S. representatives were from their Biden predecessors.

 

The resulting firestorm of support for Zelenskyy in Ukraine, where under Ukrainian law, an election cannot be called under a state of martial law and the country steeped deep in conflict, with millions of its citizens abroad, making voting a strategic nightmare, the call for elections has been viewed as an underhanded attempt to sow chaos and divide the country at a time of its vexing existential dilemma. 

 

A prominent documentary director and commentator in Ukraine, a critic of Mr. Zelenskyy, wrote: "After Trump's verbal diarrhea, by tomorrow, Zelensksyy's approval rating will be back above 90 percent -- just like it was on February 24, three years ago", with the invasion of Ukraine by Moscow. 

 

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks after signing an executive order on reciprocal tariffs in the Oval Office at the White House on February 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives to meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the 61st Munich Security Conference on February 15, 2025 in Munich, Germany.   Getty Images