Trump threatens Zelensky Ukraine war could be settled without him

The warning came after Zelensky complained that Ukraine was not at the talks between US and Russian diplomats in Riyadh, and said that his country would not accept a peace deal reached without its participation

New York: As their war of words escalated, US President Donald Trump threatened Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky that there could be a deal with Russia to end the three-year Ukraine War without him.

Zelensky “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. “We are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP’, and the Trump Administration, can do,” he said.

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The warning came after Zelensky complained that Ukraine was not at the talks between US and Russian diplomats in Riyadh, and said that his country would not accept a peace deal reached without its participation.

In a personal attack on Trump, Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv that Trump was “living in a web of disinformation”. Trump shot back that Zelensky was a “dictator without elections”.

Earlier, Trump had accused Ukraine of starting the war, although Russia had invaded it. Trump calling Zelensky a “dictator” has to do with Ukraine not holding elections because of the war last year after his five-year term ended.

As the principal financier and supporter of Ukraine’s war efforts, Trump appears to believe that he could unilaterally compel Kyiv to accept peace terms that he works out with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Delegations headed by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed for more than four hours on Tuesday how to end the war and both sides said there was progress.

Rubio said that Russia was ready for “a serious process” to quickly end the war, and Lavrov called the talks “useful”. One of the side outcomes of the talks was the agreement to restore their embassies to a full working level since they now have only scaled down diplomatic presences.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said the US bore an unequal burden compared to Europe in supporting Ukraine.

He said, “Zelensky talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the US and ‘TRUMP’, will never be able to settle.”

Since the European countries are Ukraine’s neighbours, unlike the US which is separated by an ocean, their contributions and the US’ should be equal.

Trump also hit out at his predecessor Joe Biden asserting that Zelensky “played him like a fiddle” and Biden didn’t try to find peace. Russia holds about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory, while Kyiv has captured only a small part of Russian territory in the region around Kursk. In a peace deal, it is unlikely that Ukraine would regain all its territory.

US Defence Minister Pete Hegseth said that it would be unrealistic for Ukraine to go back to the pre-2014 borders when Russia annexed Crimea and after the war began in 2022, captured more territory. He also ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine.