WASHINGTON — President Trump jabbed at Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky Friday — blaming him for a lack of progress in peace talks to end Russia’s nearly four-year invasion.
“Zelensky is going to have to get moving,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for North Carolina.
“Russia wants to make a deal, and Zelensky is going to have to get moving. Otherwise, he’s going to miss a great opportunity.”
Zelensky, with whom Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship, insists that he cannot make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that changes Ukraine’s borders — Putin’s central demand — without a national referendum.
Responding to Trump at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Zelensky claimed the Ukrainian people were “90% against elections now” because they feel it would be too difficult for citizens living abroad and soldiers at the front to cast ballots.
“If President Trump will give me [an effort at] pushing Putin [for a] cease-fire for two, three months, we will do elections,” Zelensky told Politico reporter Dasha Burns.
Zelensky insisted that “Russia is not not winning” the war and called on Trump to consider the use of “total sanctions” by NATO allies against Moscow to bring the war to a favorable end.
“President Trump made, by the way, strong steps. We are thankful to him on Lukoil. He put sanctions on Lukoil, [but] he can put [sanctions] on all their energy, on nuclear energy,” Zelensky said.
He also said Trump should tell Russian elites with property and children based in the US to “f–k away to Russia. Go home … They have a lot of real estate. They have children, relatives everywhere.”
Lead Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev reacted to Trump’s latest remarks with muted approval, tweeting video of the president’s comments along with a handshake emoji between the US and Russian flags.
The Ukrainian president — considered a Churchillian hero by supporters and a stubborn obstacle to peace by many Trump advisers — is serving past the expiration of his initial five-year term, which was scheduled to end in 2024.
