United States President Donald Trump continued his verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), as European leaders tried to negotiate a deal to stop the fighting in the former Soviet state.
Trump criticised Zelenskyy for saying a deal to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “is still very, very far away”.
The Ukrainian leader made his comments to reporters in London where he had been attending a summit with other European leaders. The summit was aimed at hatching out a plan to present to the U.S. to end the war, which began with a Russian invasion in 2022.
This followed angry scenes in the Oval Office on Friday as Trump and his deputy J.D. Vance chastised Zelenskyy for not falling into line with their plans to end the conflict, which has killed more than one million people.
The Trump administration has also stopped financing new weapons sales to Ukraine and is considering freezing weapons shipments from U.S. stockpiles, current and former U.S. officials were quoted in a Wall Street Journal article as saying.
In a post on his Truth Social network, the U.S. President said: “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!
“It is what I was saying, this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing and, Europe, in the meeting they had with Zelenskyy, stated flatly that they cannot do the job without the U.S. – Probably not a great statement to have been made in terms of a show of strength against Russia. What are they thinking?”
Asked by a reporter to comment about the outlines of a new European initiative to end Russia’s war, Zelenskyy was quoted in a news report as saying: “An agreement to end the war is still very, very far away, and no one has started all these steps yet. The peace that we foresee in the future must be just, honest, and most importantly, sustainable.”
He was speaking as British officials revealed several proposals for a truce between Ukraine and Russia, including a one-month pause recommended by France to allow peace talks to proceed.
"There are clearly a number of options on the table," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's spokesman was quoted in a news report as saying.
Ukraine was part of the Russian empire before the Russian revolution in 1917. It formally became part of the Soviet Union in 1992 and gained independence in 1991.
