(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on February 19, 2025 shows, L-R, US President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 18, 2025 and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on February 19, 2025. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT and Tetiana DZHAFAROVA / various sources / AFP)
Miami: US President Donald Trump called Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" Wednesday, widening a personal rift with major implications for efforts to end the conflict triggered by Russia's invasion three years ago.
The United States had provided funding and arms to Ukraine but, in an abrupt policy shift since coming to power, Trump has opened talks with Moscow.
"A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform of the Ukrainian leader, whose five-year term expired last year.
Ukrainian law does not require elections during wartime.
On Tuesday Trump held a press conference in which he criticized Zelensky, repeated several Kremlin narratives about the conflict and called for an end to the war.
Zelensky in turn accused Trump of succumbing to Russian "disinformation," including Trump blaming of Kyiv for having "started" the war and echoing Kremlin questions over Zelensky's legitimacy.
"He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing (Joe) Biden 'like a fiddle,'" said Trump in the Truth post of Zelensky.
"In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only 'TRUMP,' and the Trump Administration, can do," Trump wrote in the post.
Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term, but has remained leader under martial law imposed following the Russian invasion.
His popularity has eroded, but the percentage of Ukrainians who trust him has never dipped below 50 percent since the conflict started, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
